


Whatever You Choose

by Lady_of_the_Refrigerator



Series: Whatever You Need [2]
Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cancer, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Mercy Killing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-02-04 23:03:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1796545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_of_the_Refrigerator/pseuds/Lady_of_the_Refrigerator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz leaned back against the building with her head in her hand and struggled desperately to resist the urge to smash her phone on the sidewalk and grind it to dust under her feet. Every little thing bothered her—the way the fabric of her jacket caught on the concrete as she moved, the glare of the sunlight reflecting off the hospital windows, even the buzzing of her cell phone triggered a mixture of anger and dread so severe her heart rate sped up every time it went off. [Sequel to Whatever You Need]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sam Milhoan - Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story deals with certain canon events with a post- _Whatever You Need_ twist, i.e., Red and Liz are already in a romantic relationship and Tom is out of the picture. I'm going to be following canon as closely as possible with those differences in mind. (For example, you don't have to worry about Red going off to kill Sam behind Liz's back, but he will still die, etc.) Most of the Sam section is already written, so hopefully it won't take terribly long between chapters until I reach the next section.

Liz leaned back against the building with her head in her hand and struggled desperately to resist the urge to smash her phone on the sidewalk and grind it to dust under her feet. Every little thing bothered her—the way the fabric of her jacket caught on the concrete as she moved, the glare of the sunlight reflecting off the hospital windows, even the buzzing of her cell phone triggered a mixture of anger and dread so severe her heart rate sped up every time it went off.  
  
No good could come from a phone call right now. It was either the hospital with test results—or worse—or the FBI trying not-so-subtly to guilt her into returning to DC as soon as possible.  
  
Now that her father had fallen ill, keeping her relationship with Red a secret had become quite a juggling act; in only a couple weeks, they’d settled into a comfortable routine, but she was finding it difficult to keep all the balls in the air here at the hospital. She agreed to let Red fly her to Nebraska without so much as a second thought because she knew if she didn’t, she’d get caught up in the hunt for Nathaniel Wolfe and wouldn’t be able to get away.  
  
Cooper was none too pleased with Liz’s disappearing act; she had been fielding calls from him and Ressler whenever she left her father’s bedside long enough to turn her phone on. Neither of them outright accused her of going with Red, but the window of opportunity she would have had to get on a commercial flight before they were grounded was so small, she couldn’t imagine they didn’t at least suspect it.  
  
She wondered if they were angling around to asking her, or if they hoped she would let it slip by accident the longer they kept her on the phone. She had half a mind to ask Red for a burner phone so the hospital could contact her and she could just keep her own cell switched off and avoid all this until she was back in DC, consequences be damned.  
  
“Ressler, _listen to me_. You don’t need me to stop Ludd. If anything, in the state I’m in right now, I’ll only slow you down. If Cooper wants to suspend me over this, I really couldn’t care less. Besides,” she said, her frustration making her flippant, “how much help could I possibly be? You don’t put any stock in profiling and I’m not really ready to be a field agent, remember?”  
  
Ressler gave an exasperated sigh. “Where the hell is Reddington in all this?”  
  
Liz’s jaw clenched; she counted to ten in her head and took a few slow, deep breaths through her nose to force herself to relax, otherwise she might have snapped at him and told him it was none of his damn business where Red was. It wouldn’t be wise to hurt Ressler’s ego or raise his hackles more than necessary when all she wanted was to be left alone.  
  
“I don’t have a clue where he is,” she said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. He left their hotel an hour ago citing unfinished business he had to attend to while they were in the area and she was too caught up with worry about her father to pry. “Does it really matter? He’ll only talk to me anyway. He said he already gave you everything you need.”  
  
“Everything we need, my ass. He’s bullshitting, biding his time.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”  
  
Liz rolled her eyes, grateful Ressler couldn’t see her. _You just keep thinkin’, Butch. That’s what you’re good at._  
  
She shook her head to clear the image of Red at nine years old trying to charm his way into his twelfth showing of _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_ after he spent all his pocket money and his mother refused to pay for him to see it again. She wondered if she was perhaps spending too much of her down time with him, watching old movies on Netflix and listening to him wax poetic about his experiences with them; it was bleeding over into her thought processes and she hoped it wasn’t obvious to anyone else.  
  
“Look, Ressler… all we’re doing at this point is arguing in circles. You’re not going to change my mind, Cooper’s not going to change my mind; I’m here and I’m staying for the foreseeable future. For once, Reddington isn’t pushing me to drop everything to be at his beck and call and I’m gonna take the time whether you like it or not.”  
  
“Fine. Take care of your dad, then. But the second Reddington decides to live up to his goddamn agreement, we’re expecting to hear from you.” The line went dead.  
  
Liz shoved her phone into her pocket and blinked back frustrated tears. She wished she could take care of her dad, but it was easier said than done, especially when it seemed like he had every intention of going off like a wounded animal to die alone.  
  
The doctors told her the only reason he perked up at all was because she was there. He put on a brave face for her, brushed off the pain, but she could see in his eyes how much he was fading. His oncologist gave him six weeks. She’d be surprised if he even lasted one.  
  
She hated herself for thinking like that. One of them had to have hope he would make it and it certainly wasn’t going to be him.  
  
Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be Red, either. He wasn’t being distant, per se, but she didn’t know how to explain him to her dad and he didn’t volunteer to come with her to the hospital regardless. More and more often since she got the phone call from Sam, she caught Red watching her when he didn’t think she was looking, with a strange sadness in his eyes, his whole demeanor. It didn’t feel like empathy. It felt like he was losing something, too.


	2. Sam Milhoan - Seeing Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It felt as though she was moving through quicksand, each step a struggle not to be pulled down, but for Red and Sam she swept into the room like a fast-moving storm, the change in atmosphere just as chilling and palpable. She watched Red’s smile fade as he registered her presence, watched the realization that she had caught him there spread across his face.

 Ressler’s phone call had only been the last layer of icing on a very frustrating cake.  
  
The helplessness she felt about her father’s condition alone was enough for her to be damn near close to climbing the walls at the hotel without Red to distract her. Combined with the restlessness that came with a lack of something productive to do, she flat out couldn’t stand it another minute—she took a cab back to the hospital where she could at least pretend she was doing something useful.   
  
Sam wouldn’t be pleased at first—he sent her away to catch up on sleep and it was obvious she hadn’t slept a wink—but he would come around. Perhaps she would read to him. He always liked that. She punched the button that would bring her to her father’s floor and breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator doors slid shut.   
  
When she turned the corner and had a clear line of sight into her father’s room, she almost couldn’t believe her eyes. All her plans fell away in an instant and in their place came a white hot anger. Red sat next to Sam’s bed, chatting and laughing with him like it was the most normal thing in the world.   
  
Liz couldn’t remember a time in her life when she felt more incensed, not even when Tom showed his true colors; somewhere deep down she had been expecting that, no matter how hard she tried to fight it. This… This was different.   
  
It felt as though she was moving through quicksand, each step a struggle not to be pulled down, but for Red and Sam she swept into the room like a fast-moving storm, the change in atmosphere just as chilling and palpable. She watched Red’s smile fade as he registered her presence, watched the realization that she had caught him there spread across his face.  
  
“I thought you were staying in for the night,” he said, dumbly.  
  
“Is this what you call taking care of unfinished business?” Her voice rose an octave or two higher than usual in anger; it had a hint of the squeaky-whine she hated so much, the one that made her sound unsure instead of authoritative, and that only served to piss her off even more. She started to round the bed and Red stood reflexively, defensively.  
  
Sam was more confused than anything else, clearly having trouble reconciling Liz’s reaction with one an FBI agent _should_ have at finding number four on her own agency’s most wanted list sitting at her father’s bedside. It made sense that she would know of Raymond Reddington, The Concierge of Crime, but it made no sense that she wasn’t trying to apprehend him, to detain him. It made no sense at all for her to argue with him like a wronged lover.  
  
“It’s all right, butterball. He’s—He’s an old friend…”  
  
“Oh, he’s an old friend, is he?” If Sam thought he was helping Red’s case, he was sorely mistaken. “I’m not so happy with you right now either, Daddy. But you…” She shook her head in disbelief. “This really takes the cake. Please tell me this is the first time you’ve been here, that whenever I turn my back you haven’t been—“  
  
“It is,” Red interrupted, his hands rising in an instinctive movement to show that he wasn’t a threat. “It is the first time.”  
  
“Lizzy, I don’t understand. You know each other?”  
  
The hollow laughter that escaped her sounded slightly deranged even to her own ears.  
  
“You know, I’m starting to think I don’t know him at all.”  
  
“That’s not true, Lizzy, you know that’s not true.”  
  
“No, Red, I don’t. How would I when every time I turn around there’s another secret to be uncovered, another mystery to unravel? Mostly about you.” She knew she was getting shrill, but she couldn’t help it.  
  
“Shh, please keep your voice down, Lizzy. The nurses—”  
  
“Don’t you even _think_ of shushing me, you bastard.”  
  
“You wouldn’t want to be thrown out of your own father’s hospital room.”  
  
Whatever angle Red should have chosen to appeal to her better judgement, that wasn’t it. In his surprise, he let himself get backed into a corner, a mistake on his part that Liz took quick advantage of; she closed the remaining distance between them before he could register what she intended to do. Her fist connected solidly with his face and he blinked back tears from the pain, shaking his head to clear it.  
  
“Jesus, Lizzy.” He quickly rifled through his pockets for his handkerchief, but it wasn’t enough to stem the flow of blood running from his nose; he sidestepped Liz and snatched up a gauze pad from the paraphernalia next to Sam’s bed. She moved to lunge after him and he held up his free hand to keep her at a distance.   
  
“Would you mind holding off until the bleeding slows down a little before you go in for the kill?”  
  
She lifted her chin and held his gaze, defiant. She was grateful for her anger, because it was familiar, predictable, and much less terrifying to examine than the heartbreak she felt floating dangerously beneath the surface. She didn’t want to believe Red was capable of betraying her, least of all like this. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. She also wanted to wring his neck.  
  
“I’m waiting for an explanation, Red, one I sure as hell hope doesn’t involve you insinuating yourself into yet another area of my life for your fucking amusement.”   
  
“Please,” he said, righting the chair he’d been sitting in and pushing it back towards Sam’s bed. “I’ll explain, just… please sit down.”  
  
She sat, her back stiff, and she could feel his hand linger on the chair behind her for a long moment before he moved away. He dragged an extra chair over from across the room and settled into it, crossing his legs in her direction and leaning heavily on the armrest closest to her, still trying to be near her despite her violent reaction to finding him there.   
  
Liz felt his presence next to her like a shadow, even as she focused all of her attention on her fists clenched in her lap, her pink, aching knuckles. He reached out to touch her lightly on the arm so she would turn to face him, hesitant like he was afraid he’d provoke another punch.  
  
“Sam and I have known each other for a long time, Lizzy. Since long before you met me. Long before you met him, actually.”  
  
“Is that…“ She shot a quick glance at her father, who was watching their exchange intently. “Is that what you meant after Wujing?”   
  
“To some extent, yes, but—”  
  
“But you wish the answer were as simple as the question seems, I know.” She ran her hands over her face and made a strangled, frustrated noise in the back of her throat. “Why do all the men in my life insist on lying to me?”  
  
“Sam didn’t lie to you,” he said quietly. “He had no reason to think you would ever meet me; mentioning me would be pointless. As for myself, it was more a case of lying by omission.”  
  
“That’s a big fucking omission. ‘Oh, by the way, your father? Yeah, he and I go way back.’ That didn’t seem important to tell me at any point? Really?”  
  
“It wasn’t the right time.”  
  
“Oh, for God’s sake! You want me to trust you and then you go and—“  
  
Sam cleared his throat. The electric tension between the two of them broke with a nearly audible crackle. Red moved his hand to rest on her shoulder and her body sagged, leaning into his touch despite herself. She watched him sniffle cautiously, checking to see if his nose had stopped bleeding.  
  
“Are you—?”  
  
“I’ll be fine. It’s not broken. Believe me, I know the difference.”  
  
She gave the hand on her shoulder an apologetic squeeze and turned back to Sam. His eyes ping-ponged between her and Red with undisguised suspicion.  
  
“Should I be signing you two up for couples counseling?” he asked. Sam’s sarcasm always came out strongest when he was frustrated and annoyed, and there was an edge to his voice now that she hadn’t heard since she was a teenager and he had found out about some of her more questionable extracurricular activities. _Oh, God_ , she thought. _It’s Omaha all over again._  
  
“What the hell is going on here? I know I’m not at the top of my game, kids, but the way I’m reading the two of you, I think I have a pretty good idea and I’m not sure I like it.”  
  
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, exchanging a quick glance with Red; he uncrossed his legs and leaned back in his chair, looking just as uncomfortable with the question as she was.   
  
“You haven’t called me kid in twenty years.” Red’s voice was somber, sentimental, and more than a little strained.  
  
“Well, you finally lost your baby face. You’re deflecting, Red. I deserve a straight answer from you and I think I’ve been real patient so far considering I’m living on borrowed time.”  
  
“Good luck with that. He’s the king of evading questions.”  
  
“Well, I know that, butterball, and he knows that. I just haven’t quite worked out why you know that.”  
  
If Sam had known Red for years, he likely knew exactly the sort of things he got up to, knew who and what he was, perhaps better than she did. There were only so many reasons why they would know each other, even fewer why he would still be walking free. She tried to weigh just how much she should explain against the possibility of being caught in a lie.  
  
“We’ve been working together. For a few months now.”  
  
“Working together?” he repeated, dubious. An unspoken, ‘Is that what they’re calling it these days?’ hung in the air, almost as clear as it would have been if he’d actually said it. She felt herself flush and Sam blanched, her reaction enough to confirm what he suspected.   
  
He turned the full weight of his disappointment on Red, who subtly pressed himself further back in his chair. She was sure if Sam kept looking at him like that, he could actually make Red squirm. She felt a pang of sympathy; she’d been on the receiving end of that look enough times. She wondered now if maybe Red had as well.  
  
“You ‘got a chance to see her’? Here I was thinking that little speech was kinda strange, but I brushed it off same as I ever do—you’ve always been smitten with the _idea_ of Lizzy, I’m used to that, I just never thought it would get to the point where you would actually try to…” Sam would have looked green if he wasn’t already so ashen. “If I had the strength, I’d punch you myself.”  
  
“Dad, it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t like that. He was… Well, I wouldn’t call him a perfect gentlemen, but I was the one who made the first move.”  
  
“You said he insinuated himself into your life—“  
  
“He did. He crossed a lot of lines, but he didn’t cross that one. That was all me.”  
  
Despite her assurances, Sam still seemed hesitant to believe her; he turned to Red, whose expression was open and held no denial or obfuscation.   
  
“I see you tried real hard to turn her down.”  
  
Red held his hands up in a sort of surrender. “She’s a force of nature, Sam. I didn’t stand a chance.”  
  
Liz reached out and took one of Red’s hands in hers; he met her gaze with a twitch of a smile and squeezed her hand in return. She would have to examine her need to defend him in spite of her lingering hurt another time. For now, it felt like they should present a united front.  
  
Sam eyed their clasped hands, a small furrow between his brows. When he spoke, he sounded calmer, lighter, like he was making a special effort to control his tone. “I know curiosity killed the cat and all, but I figure I have a couple spare lives to burn and I can’t help wondering how the hell this all went down.”  
  
“It all comes back to Tom, really. You know the gist of what happened, but I couldn’t go into much detail for obvious reasons. The truth is it wasn’t exactly as out-of-left-field as I made it seem. Red had been trying to get me to see what Tom was since the day we started working together, but I couldn’t let myself believe it until it was impossible to ignore. Once that finally happened, I sort of… snapped.   
  
“I confronted him and we argued. It was a one-sided thing for the most part—he was… more than willing to let me unload a lot of confusion and frustration on him. I blamed him for my life falling apart, which was Tom’s doing a helluva lot more than it was his, but… I sort of… attacked him. He wouldn’t defend himself or fight back and everything just… escalated from there. As cliche as it sounds, one thing led to another and—” Red made a noise of protest. “What? You remember it differently?”  
  
“Sweetheart, you had me when you punched a hole in my carotid.”  
  
Sam’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You did _what_?”  
  
“I stabbed him with a pen,” she explained. “The day we met. It’s kind of a long story.”  
  
Sam’s shoulders began to shake and his face reddened as a horrible, choking, strangled sound ripped itself from his chest. Liz’s stomach dropped and she and Red were at his side in an instant. It took much longer than usual to realize he was laughing. He couldn’t seem to _stop_ laughing, but he was laughing all the same.   
  
Tears streamed down his face as he tried to calm himself. Red offered him a sip of water and he took it gratefully, but waved him off after with a lingering wheezy laugh.   
  
“What the hell is so funny?”  
  
“The… the pen… is mightier… than the sword,” he said, breathless. “How many people want you dead? Really, how many times has someone tried to kill you? Ten times? Twenty? That probably doesn’t even scratch the surface.” He shook his head and looked at them standing there tense and worried above him; his cheek muscles twitched as he tried to stave off another bout of laughter. “But somehow against all odds, you always— _always_ —manage to come out on top. Then Lizzy comes along, shoves a BIC through your neck, and almost succeeds where they all failed—and you fall in love with her for it.”  
  
“Technically, it was a Parker,” Red said lamely, holding his fingers to the tiny scar self-consciously.  
  
“You’re a twisted son of a bitch, Red, you know that?” Sam said. There was a fondness in his tone that belied his words. He was starting to unbend, bit by bit, as it became more obvious Liz could hold her own with Red. It did a lot to put Sam’s mind at ease.    
  
“I’ve always appreciated someone with the courage to be upfront with me no matter the situation. Whatever else it is, a pen in the neck is definitely honest.”  
  
“It wasn’t exactly the wisest move on my part. A mysterious, dangerous man comes into my life and turns it upside down—I shouldn’t have stabbed you, I should have been terrified of you.”  
  
“You never were afraid of me; you certainly proved it that day. It showed me who you are better than any file or second-hand information ever could. And as far as first dates go, it’s not exactly the worst I’ve ever had.”  
  
“Courtship by way of attempted murder.”   
  
“Nobody would ever claim we were conventional.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Red and Liz stayed with Sam while he ate his bland hospital dinner. They shared stories about the cases they worked on together from Red’s list—highly censored versions, of course—in hopes of distracting him long enough to get a full meal in him and, for the most part, they were successful. Hindsight made even the more harrowing cases seem exciting and, not for the first time, Liz wondered if she was becoming an adrenaline junkie at Red’s side. Or, perhaps more likely, she was merely returning to her roots.  
  
“Red managed to talk him down so well the guy offered to get us out of the country along with him. I don’t know how he does it.” She shook her head and sighed. “Sometimes it seems like his sense of self-preservation is only matched by the lengths he’s willing to go to save my life.”  
  
A dark cloud settled over the three of them at her words; Sam’s amusement faded and something strange passed between the two men.  
  
“Hang on,” she said, looking back and forth between them. “What just happened? I feel like I missed something.”  
  
Neither of them answered her. In fact, Sam’s attention was focused so strongly on Red, it almost felt like she wasn’t even in the same room.   
  
“What if they find me, Red?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.  
  
“Sam…” Red sat up straighter in his chair, warning clear in every line of his body; he was very much still aware of Liz’s presence and she was in tune enough with his moods to recognize when he didn’t want a conversation to continue.  
  
“I can’t do it. I can’t spend the last few weeks of my life afraid that they’ll find me. If they catch up to me now, I won’t have the strength to resist; I’ll tell them everything. You can’t afford that.”   
  
“I’m sure Red has a safe house nearby,” she said, glancing over at Red.  
  
Red and Sam exchanged another indecipherable look; Sam blinked back tears and dropped his gaze, nodding so slightly she almost didn’t see it.  
  
“Yeah,” Red answered, his voice rough. “Yeah, I do.” He swallowed hard before he continued. “I’ll go call in a few favors and send Dembe up to watch the room.”  
  
“I should go with him.” She bent and kissed Sam’s forehead. “I’ll be back soon, Daddy.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Liz’s cell phone buzzed less than thirty seconds after she turned it on—a new record. She checked the ID and heaved a heavy, exasperated sigh. She knew she should have left it off; Dembe wouldn’t let anything happen to her dad while she and Red were gone. She braced herself and hit the talk icon.  
  
“Keen.”  
  
“You wanna tell me why Reddington is in Nebraska with you?”  
  
“Nice to hear from you, too, Ressler.”  
  
“Cut the crap, Keen. I knew you were hiding something, disappearing like that. What the hell are you and Reddington up to? Is your father even sick?”  
  
“You’re an ass, Ressler. Of course my father’s sick, he’s _dying_. Red offered to help get him into private hospice care and you know what? I’m gonna let him. But God forbid he does something positive, right? Obviously everything is black and white and criminals are all heartless beasts. We wouldn’t want to upset your world-view, would we, Javert?” Liz fumed. Too bad Ressler already jumped off a goddamn bridge and survived with his cognitive dissonance intact. He was lucky she couldn’t get her hands on him right now.   
  
Ressler fell silent for a long while. When he spoke again, he sounded subdued. Not quite apologetic, but it was a near thing.   
  
“How long are they giving your dad?”  
  
“Six weeks. But I’m starting to think it won’t be nearly that long. It feels like he’s given up.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Keen.”  
  
“Yeah. Look, I have to get going,” she said, watching Red wrap up his own conversation at the other end of the sidewalk. “We need to move him as soon as Red works out the logistics.” She didn’t wait for an answer before hanging up and powering the phone down yet again, hopefully for the last time while they were in Nebraska.  
  
“So?” she asked, coming up to Red as he ended his call and slipped his phone into his pocket.  
  
“We should be able to have him moved within the hour.”  
  
Her chest tightened painfully; she seized him by the back of the neck and pressed her lips to his in a sudden, fierce kiss. Red wasn’t expecting it—it took him a moment longer than usual to return the kiss and when he did, it was with the restrained desperation of someone who hadn’t thought he was going to have another chance to do so.   
  
She straightened his lapels and tucked her hand inside his vest between two of the buttons, rubbing the material between her fingers. “Thank you for this.”  
  
Red twitched an uncomfortable-looking smile.   
  
“It’s the least I can do.” He put his hand in the crook of her arm, but not to guide her the way he usually did; he trailed after her more than anything. She didn’t really know what to make of it, but she lead him through the hospital lobby into the elevator regardless. He prodded the button for Sam’s floor and leaned back against the wall, staring unfocused at the ceiling.  
  
“Your father is the only person,” he said, speaking haltingly, “who can still make me feel like the scrawny little silver-tongued punk from Boston who was too intelligent for his own good and lost his soul. I’m no stranger to living in the past, Lizzy, but I don’t usually get stuck quite that far back.” He took a slow, deep breath and swallowed reflexively. “The world will be a darker place without him.” 


	3. Sam Milhoan - Tension Relief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liz watched in bemusement as he crawled into bed and arranged himself on his elbows and knees across her lap.
> 
> “What are you doing?”
> 
> “You’re still angry with me. I thought I would help remedy that. Give you an outlet for it.”
> 
> “By letting me…” She trailed off and ran a tentative hand over his ass.
> 
> “Mmm. Somehow I figured you wouldn’t be completely averse to the idea.”

Liz was exhausted, frustrated, emotionally drained. Watching Red’s people help Sam get settled into his room earlier in the evening brought on a wave of powerlessness so strong, she had found it difficult to breathe. Everything had such an air of finality about it—the last car he would ever ride in, the last bed he would ever sleep in, and, soon enough, the last meal he would ever eat. He would, without a doubt, die within these walls and, as nice as the safe house was, the knowledge of the inevitability of her father’s death was suffocating.   
  
She stayed only long enough to make sure he was all right, kissed him on the cheek, and all but fled to her room. If she had stayed even one second longer, she would have had a breakdown. Right in front of him. Then he would have comforted her and that felt like it was the wrong way around. It felt selfish, to ask that of him.  
  
Instead, she lashed out at Red and for once she could say with absolute certainty that he hadn’t deserved it at all. The dull pain in his eyes only made her feel worse. He was, after all, hurting too. He was about to lose a friend and those, she knew, were in short supply in his life.   
  
She shut herself away in their bathroom after that.  
  
Red had knocked softly on the door a few moments later before pushing it open. She wiped hastily at her tears as he pressed a steaming mug of rich, indulgent hot chocolate into her hand, spiked with something to take the edge off. She caught his hand before he could walk away, brushed her lips across his knuckles, a silent thank you for the warm, soothing beverage. Her relaxed muscles now were proof enough of its efficacy.   
  
Leaning back into the pillows, she stared off into space, hardly able to keep herself focused on anything more than the sound of running water from the bathroom. She almost wished the safe house had cable, or at least wifi, because she needed a proper distraction—a distraction from her distraction, really. Something to hold her attention for more than thirty seconds at a time. Her novel just wasn’t cutting it; she read the same paragraph four times before she finally gave up and set it aside.  
  
Her mind wandered in endless circles—to Red, to Sam, to what it was going to be like after Sam died. Her life was about to change drastically— _again_ —and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She would be alone in a way that she hadn’t been since she was four years old. It was a sobering thought, a terrifying thought.  
  
Red returned from his shower wearing a bright white t-shirt and had foregone his customary pajama bottoms in favor of a snug pair of dark boxer-briefs. He claimed they were warmer than boxers in the winter months, but wearing nothing but the boxer-briefs seemed to defeat the purpose. (Truth be told, she didn’t really care what his reasons were—she simply enjoyed the view.)  
  
Liz watched in bemusement as he crawled into bed and arranged himself on his elbows and knees across her lap.  
  
“What are you doing?”   
  
“You’re still angry with me. I thought I would help remedy that. Give you an outlet for it.”  
  
“By letting me…” She trailed off and ran a tentative hand over his ass.   
  
“Mmm. Somehow I figured you wouldn’t be completely averse to the idea.”  
  
Liz took a slow, deep breath, took a moment to analyze the frisson of excitement, of anticipation, that sparked along her nerve endings. Heat began to pool in her belly.   
  
“Well, you’re not wrong.”  
  
“Go ahead. Trust me, it can be… mutually beneficial.”  
  
She slapped him experimentally—once, twice, three times—trying to gauge his reaction as well as her own, to get a feel for where the strikes should fall and how hard she should make them. The third slap was also the hardest, and it elicited a low moan from him that made her stomach flutter pleasantly. Her breathing started to quicken.  
  
Red peered up at her past his shoulder. “Good?” he asked.   
  
She pursed her lips, shook her head. The contact through the fabric was lacking somehow. She hooked her fingers into his waistband, silently asking him to allow her to pull them down. He nodded.   
  
Next, she skimmed her fingers under the hem of his t-shirt and he inhaled sharply, his back tensing under her fingers. After a moment, he purposely relaxed his muscles. She’d felt his scars of course, but she and Red had fallen into the habit of reaching for each other in the middle of the night or early in the morning before she had to be at work—they rarely had the luxury of time or even the inclination to undress completely—so she hadn’t really had the chance to examine them up close.   
  
She bit her lip and began to slide the shirt up and off his back. Her breath caught in her throat as more and more of his back was slowly revealed.  
  
“Red, this is… I didn’t realize how bad they were,” she said, tracing along the puckered, scarred expanse of skin. His breaths came fast and shallow; he didn’t press himself into her touch like he often did, but he didn’t shy away either. “Do they still hurt?”  
  
“No,” he said, but what little she could see of his expression looked pained enough. Maybe not physical pain, then.  
  
“I’m sure there’s a story behind them,” she said, giving him an opening to explain, hoping he would share for once. He shuddered and hung his head, a low guttural groan escaping his lips.   
  
“Lizzy, _please_.”  
  
Was he begging her to drop the subject or to continue doing what she was doing? Or both?   
  
She ran her hand along the contours of his shoulders and down his spine to rest where the curve of his ass began. The raised skin of the scar on her wrist caught on his along the way and something niggled at the edges of her memory, but no matter which way she turned the image over in her mind, the impression became no clearer. Something was missing.  
  
When she finally brought her hand down on him again, his breath hitched in a sigh that sounded very much like relief despite the sharpness of the slap.  
  
“What did Sam mean when he said you’ve always been smitten with the idea of me?”  
  
He whipped his head around. “ _Lizzy_.”  
  
“Hey, I have a captive audience, might as well use it to my advantage. Or would you rather we go back to the scars?”  
  
A fine sheen of sweat broke out on his skin. He turned away, shut his eyes.  
  
“Sam told me about you over the years,” he said, “little anecdotes here and there. I had my own information, of course, but his stories… They became important to me. _You_ became important to me. I don’t think anyone could overstate how much I grew to admire you. I didn’t exactly try to hide it either, which in hindsight wasn’t the wisest choice on my part.”  
  
An especially strong, firm slap caught him by surprise, sending him forward with a grunt; his erection slid against her leg. She slapped him again to distract herself from the coiling pleasure in her belly, her own skin quickly starting to tingle from repeated contact.   
  
She ran her hand over the hot, reddened skin of his ass and his muscles tensed as he fought the urge to grind himself against her intentionally. He was quieter than usual, perhaps not terribly confident in the sound-dampening qualities of the old walls or the distance between their bedroom and Sam’s.  
  
“Lizzy, if you’re planning on making use of me, I advise you to do so as soon as possible or I’m afraid I’m going to— _oh God_.” She trailed a teasing finger down between his cheeks and he jerked helplessly, twitching and spilling against her thigh. She reached her other hand out as he scrabbled for purchase and intwined their fingers together; his grip was just shy of bruising.  
  
She was just as flushed as he was, could feel her face burning with arousal tinged with embarrassment for having enjoyed doing this to him so much. No one else had ever let her indulge this side of herself. The handful of men she’d been with in her life had either found the thought of letting her take control like this unappealing or downright intimidating. Red, however, not only allowed it, but welcomed it, even seemed to thrive on it.  
  
His grip on her hand slackened as he panted, forehead pressed against the blanket. She laid her hand on the back of his head, her fingers drawing lazy patterns in the short hair there as she waited for him to catch his breath. When he finally did, he pulled his boxer-briefs back up to his waist and went in search of something to clean up the mess.  
  
He crawled back into bed, covered her body with his and captured her lips in a slow, thorough kiss.  
  
Framing her face with his hands, he said, “Usually the point of that particular exercise is to make sure I _don’t_ come.”  
  
“Mmm, but it’s so much more satisfying making sure you can’t help it.”  
  
“I like the way you think.”   
  
“So you’ve said.” She pulled him in for another kiss.  
  
She reveled in the feeling of him cradled between her thighs. The heat, the contrast of his hairy belly and legs against her smooth ones, the weight of him, the pressure… She dipped her hand under his waistband, squeezing his sore ass, teasing him like she had earlier; he let out a gust of air and pressed himself tighter against her, his brow furrowed in concentration. His spent cock twitched, trying and failing to stir again.   
  
“If that’s something you want to explore someday,” he said, his voice still low and gravelly. “I’m more than happy to oblige.”  
  
“Gee, I never would have guessed,” she said. She felt a bubble of laughter threatening to escape her and she was struck by how much of a relief it was to find amusement in something for a change.   
  
She cupped Red’s face, traced her thumb along his mouth; he pressed a kiss against the pad and her stomach fluttered and twisted in a sweet pang of pleasure. At that moment, she could truly see herself doing this in the long term—going to bed next to him, waking up next to him, having arguments and making up. She could see herself in love with him.  
  
Liz’s stomach dropped out from under her, like she missed a step at the foot of a staircase. It was the first time she ever really allowed herself to even think the word and consider that it might apply to how she felt towards Red. Probably did apply. Crap.  
  
She’d fallen so fast for Tom, a man she thought she knew inside and out, but didn’t really know at all. With Red, all she knew going in was that she really didn’t know anything about him. After all, he had said himself that everything about him was a lie. He should still be a stranger, but he felt so familiar, had become so dear to her so quickly, despite everything.   
  
Tom had had an agenda in seeking her out that was buried so deeply she couldn’t see it until it was too late. She didn’t know _what_ Red’s agenda for her was, but, again, she knew from the very first moment that it existed.  
  
“Red?”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“You consider us partners, right?”  
  
His lips turned up in the corners and he nodded once. “Partners”—he pressed a kiss below her ear—“lovers”—under her jaw—“allies”—in the hollow of her neck—“friends.”   
  
“If that’s true, we have to be equals. I understand you’re not always going to tell me everything about everything, but just… give me the benefit of the doubt, OK? I might surprise you. If you keep yourself open to communication, there’s no need for things like today to happen.”  
  
He looked at her, his eyes wary and slightly shuttered. “I’ve been on my own for a long time, Lizzy,” he said. “I haven’t really had to answer to anyone. I’m not sure I even remember how to be around someone else in the long term.”  
  
Liz bristled. “If you’d rather not—“  
  
“That’s not what I meant. This is all very new to me—more so than it is to you, no matter how one-sided your marriage turned out to be. I’m not used to anyone giving _me_ the benefit of the doubt. I’m not used to forgiveness. It’s always been easier to just… not explain myself, because that’s what people expect from me. Dedication, I understand. Devotion, that goes without saying. Truly sharing a part of myself with someone else? I have to relearn how to do that. This will be a learning experience for both of us. All I ask is that you trust me to tell you things when it’s safe for you to know.”  
  
“You’ll only keep things from me if my life depends on it and not because it’s more convenient for you?” Red opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “All I’m asking is for _you_ to trust _me_.”  
  
He searched her face for a long moment and nodded slowly. “I think I can do that.”  
  
“Good,” she said. “You’re the only constant in my life right now. Once Sam is gone, you’ll be all I have. Maybe it’s foolish or naive of me, but it feels like you’ll always be there.”  
  
“As long as you want me, you have me. In whatever capacity.”  
  
She ran her nails over his chest, threading her fingers through the hair there. He grunted when she tugged at it.   
  
“You think I’m going to give this up?”  
  
“Well, I certainly hope not.” He ran his hands down her sides, raising goosebumps as he went. When he reached the hem of her shirt, he pushed it up just far enough to expose her breasts. “I, for one, am sure I could never grow tired of this,” he said, and lowered his head to take a pebbled nipple into his mouth.  
  
She bit back a moan, drawing her nails across his scalp. “You don’t have to do that,” she gasped.  
  
“You’ll sleep better.”  
  
“Mmm, true.”


	4. Sam Milhoan - Guess Who?

Morning came and brought with it a picturesque scene to the kitchen in Red’s cozy old safe house—sun streamed in through the window over the sink, ingredients lay measured and neat on the counter waiting to be used, scents of cooking food wafted out into the rest of the house like a siren song. It marked the first day of Red’s promised cooking lessons, a welcome distraction from the worry and stress of Sam’s illness.  
  
Red leaned on an elbow next to Liz at the counter, explaining the purpose of what she was doing in a low, patient voice while she listened intently and attempted to follow his instructions as accurately as she could. Her lack of confidence was obvious; he kept in tune with it, careful not to overwhelm her, and successfully talked her through her nerves, interspersed with only the occasional whispered profanity on her part. The end result was a very serviceable hollandaise sauce.    
  
“Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked, light, gentle.  
  
“We haven’t tried it yet.” Frowning slightly, Liz dipped a teaspoon into the buttery sauce and gave it a cautious taste. Huh. The flavor was good, and the texture, too. Not bad for a first attempt, really. She’d been expecting lumps, like that time she got ambitious after binge watching Food Network for two days straight and decided to try making ice cream from scratch, but ended up with vanilla scrambled egg soup.    
  
“OK, maybe you’re right. Here.” She filled another spoon and offered it to Red, but he leaned forward and bypassed it to capture her lips, tasting it that way instead. Her free hand came up to the back of his head, holding him to her so she could kiss him back soundly. The spoon clattered and splattered on the counter, forgotten.  
  
Soon, there was a sound of a throat clearing behind them and they sprung apart with a start. A fierce blush crept up Liz’s neck and face when she saw her father standing in the doorway, leaning heavily against the doorjamb as he struggled to catch his breath. Red was at his side in a flash, supporting him on the way to the table.  
  
“Dad, you really shouldn’t be out of bed,” she said, her attention safely on the pot of sauce as she willed her blush to disappear.    
  
“What’s it gonna do, kill me?”  
  
“ _Daddy_.”  
  
“Sam, your morbid sense of humor is a breath of fresh air.”  
  
Sam shrugged. “At this point, all I’ve got is morbid.” He leaned back heavily in his chair, drained and winded by the short trek. “If I’m interrupting something, just say the word and I’ll head back to my room.”  
  
“Nonsense,” Red said; if he was at all embarrassed over having been caught kissing Sam’s daughter in front of him, he hid it better than Liz. “You’re just in time for Day One of cooking lessons.”  
  
“Really?” Sam looked surprised, and more than a little impressed. “So what’s on the menu today?”  
  
“Eggs Benedict with hollandaise sauce handcrafted by Chef Lizzy.”  
  
Sam’s eyebrows rose even further. “Good to see you’re starting with something simple.”  
  
“I’ll have you know I grew up watching Julia Child make hollandaise on PBS, I could make it in my sleep. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I have a couple times.” Red took the stirring spoon from Liz, giving the sauce a quick stir and said, “It’ll keep in a Thermos until we need it. You want to try your hand at the eggs while I take care of that?”  
  
“Not really, no,” she said, with a tight smile on her face and an edge of panic in her voice.  
  
“Lizzy,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder in reassurance, “you’ve stared down some of the most heinous criminals in the world without batting an eye, you can do this.”  
  
“Such an inflated sense of your own importance.”  
  
Red twitched a smile. “You find me less intimidating than poached eggs.”  
  
“Does that wound your fragile ego?”  
  
“No.” He tucked her hair behind her ear and let his hand linger. “Not at all.”  
  
He pulled over the tray filled with eggs in small glass ramekins, so it was well within easy reach of her place at the stove in front of a pan of simmering water.    
  
“Remember, they’re cracked and ready, just slide them in clockwise around the pan and pull them in the same order, that way they’ll be evenly cooked and you won’t lose track. And if you screw them up? Don’t worry. Eggs are cheap and we’ve got plenty.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Sam watched Lizzy and Red go about their lesson with a small, sad smile on his face. He had to admit seeing them interact made him understand just a little bit better why they gravitated towards each other—they could be themselves, something he knew didn’t come easy to two people as guarded as they were.  
  
He hadn’t ever thought he’d see Red so relaxed around someone again, truly comfortable without the underlying emotional defenses he’d built around his heart. There was no artifice when he was around Lizzy. It was refreshing to see his friend so unencumbered. It was even more refreshing to see Lizzy as the focus of such genuine affection after the debacle with Tom.  
  
Sure, she was nervous doing something she’d never done, but Red knew how to defuse the tension without making a big deal out of it. He was patient and kind, and she responded well to that. Not even when she and Tom were newlyweds did she seem so at ease in her own skin.  
  
He thought maybe it had been new love coloring her personality then, but he could see now that he was wrong. She’d been stifled by the bastard—she had only been giving him what she thought he wanted, which was merely a shadow of her true self. This Lizzy right here, this teasing, bantering, vital young woman who gave as good as she got? _This_ was his little girl.  
  
The fact that Red had obviously fallen for this version of her? Well, it did more to erase Sam’s fears about their relationship than anything. Red wouldn’t want her to be someone she wasn’t. And Lizzy would see him for who he really was, as well.  
  
They were playing a dangerous game, Sam knew, and he wouldn’t be the last loss either of them would suffer before it was over. He just hoped they might be able to eke out a little happiness in the meantime.  
  
“Time to eat,” Red announced, shaking Sam from his reverie. He and Lizzy set the finished plates of food onto the table and took their seats on either side of Sam.  
  
He sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy.  
  


* * *

  
  
Three days later, Ressler and the task force still hadn’t managed to take down Nathaniel Wolfe and General Ludd. Red decided to take pity on them, or at least on the continued value of the dollar, and left to lend his particular brand of expertise to the case soon after breakfast. (He managed to conjure up a waffle iron once Liz expressed her disdain for pancakes in no uncertain terms and she had yet another recipe under her belt.)  
  
Sam slept, often and for long stretches, leaving Liz to her own devices most of the day, and the safe house took on an eerie quiet with only her, Sam, and the nurse present. She spent a great deal of time just poking around in nooks and crannies while he napped. Today, she found a random collection of battered board games stashed in one of the closets. _Monopoly, Battleship, Sorry!, Guess Who?_ —the shelves were lined with blasts from the past. It made her wonder about the owners of the old house.  
  
She tucked a few dusty boxes under her arm and went to check on her father.  
  
There was a brief moment every time she passed Sam’s room that she held her breath and braced herself, preparing for the possibility that when she turned the corner and peered inside, he would already be gone. It hadn’t happened yet, of course; she wasn’t sure she would be ready to deal with it if and when it did.  
  
This afternoon, Sam lay with his hands clasped over his chest, staring unfocused at the ceiling with a deep furrow in his brow and a frown on his scruffy face. He looked wan, listless, troubled.  
  
Liz knocked lightly on the doorjamb to catch his attention; he glanced over at her and it took a few seconds for him to arrange his face into some semblance of a smile. She returned it, but hers didn’t reach her eyes anymore than his did.  
  
“Hey. How’re you feeling?”  
  
“I’m still breathing. Albeit not very well.” With great effort, Sam pushed himself up in the bed. “What’ve you got there?”  
  
“I found some old games hidden away in a closet. Wanna help me check and see if any of them still have enough pieces to play?”  
  
“Sure, bring ‘em on over,” he said, waving her closer with a frail hand. “There should be a tray table around here somewhere.”  
  
She set the table across Sam’s lap and he took the lid off the old _Monopoly_ box, started matching the property deed cards with the spaces on the board. She started on her own box, pulling out two stacks of cards, one backed in red and the other blue.  
  
Two Georges, two Alfreds, two Susans and Marias. There was only one Richard, though, and one Joe. Liz sighed and started putting the pieces back in the box. She always liked _Guess Who?_ when she was a kid. It was one of the first games the older boy next door let her play with him after she moved in with Sam.  
  
“How did you end up adopting me?” she asked after watching him sort through his cards for a while.  
  
“Haven’t I told you this story before?”  
  
“You tried to tell me once that the stork dropped me off on your doorstep. Remember?”  
  
“Oh, geez, that’s right. You were so indignant. How was I supposed to know how much you absorbed from watching _I Love Lucy_ reruns religiously? ‘That’s not where Little Ricky came from, so it’s not where I came from!’”  
  
Liz snorted at the imitation, his gravelly, scratchy voice straining with the effort to sound high-pitched and young. “Give me some credit. I was four, not two.”  
   
Sam chuckled, a congested, uncomfortable sound. “You gotta cut me some slack, butterball. I had no idea what I was doing, I had no real experience with kids before you.”  
  
Liz sobered quickly. “Where did I come from? Really. I know it wasn’t just a normal adoption.”  
  
He met her eyes briefly, then began to separate the pastel paper bills into denominations. He seemed to be weighing what he should tell her, which made her a little uneasy. If he wouldn’t explain, how would she find out after he was gone? At last, he came to a resolution.  
  
“It was a friend of mine. He brought you to me one night. He really did show up on my doorstep—I should’ve told him I called him the stork, he’d get a kick out of it.”  
  
“Dad… Keep stalling like that and you’ll give Red a run for his money.” He let out a half-hearted breath of a laugh, but he wouldn’t look up at her. “Your friend, why would he… How did he end up with me in the first place? I’m guessing he wasn’t from an adoption agency.”  
  
“He was involved with some dangerous people, dangerous people who wanted him to, uh… _deal with_ … some people who were even more dangerous.”  
  
“And some of those people were tied to me?”  
  
Sam nodded. “Your father. You know he was a shady character—”  
  
“He was a criminal, you don’t have to sugar coat it. Look where I am now, for God’s sake.”  
  
“My friend had gotten in over his head with the people he worked for but he didn’t realize that yet. At that point he was still just doing his job. He was already in danger just by agreeing to do it. I mean, he didn’t have all that much choice to begin with, really. He might have been killed for refusing, we’ll never know now.” He shook his head, shrugged. “Anyway, things went bad. There was a fire.” He gestured to her wrist.  
  
“I don’t know if it was intentional or if it broke out during a struggle; I don’t know if he knew about you ahead of time or if you were a surprise. He wouldn’t tell me any specifics. He never was the sharing type. All I know for sure is the outcome—he found you and he took you to me, told me your father had died and you needed a home, someone to care for you.”  
  
“Why you?” she asked.  
  
Sam shrugged. “He was in pretty rough shape. I could tell he was scared, that he didn’t know where else to go, who else to trust. He knew I was… safe.” Sam paused, blinking back tears. “I don’t know what made him believe I’d be a good father to you, Lizzy, but I’m grateful every day for his faith in me.”  
  
Liz felt her own eyes burn at the sentiment and reached out to give his hand a quick squeeze.  
  
“I don’t remember any of this,” she said. “I don’t remember him.”  
  
“You used to have nightmares when you were young.”  
  
“I remember having nightmares, I remember fire, just not anything specific.”  
  
“It was traumatic enough for you to block a lot of it out.”  
  
Liz frowned. That wasn’t a satisfying answer at all. Everything in her said that this was a puzzle she should be able to piece together, but the solution was just out of reach. She felt frustrated and stupid, her anxiety and dread taxing her usually quick mind to the point of sluggishness. Lately, she just didn’t have the ability to process things the way she was used to. Maybe she really did have a mental block.  
  
“Maybe someday it’ll come back to me,” she said, rubbing absently at her scar. “Then again, maybe it’s better if it doesn’t.”  
  


* * *

  
  
When Red came in, it was late. Liz was already in bed, dozing fitfully. In her dreams, she and Sam played _Guess Who?_ and all of the figures on the cards had shaggy blond hair but none of them had faces.  
  
“They catch Wolfe yet?” she asked, groggy.  
  
Red slid his tie from his collar and rolled it carefully before setting it on the dresser. It was the burgundy one with the tiny white lines in a diamond pattern; he’d worn it that fateful day at the zoo, when his man ran off with the bomb from Beth’s backpack and Red told her they would make a great team. Call her sentimental, but it was one of her favorites.  
  
“Mmhmm. I may have set a bad precedent. Ressler thinks I’m willing to work with him now, alone.”  
  
“Well, I’m sure you’ll disabuse him of that notion at your first opportunity in the politest possible way.”  
  
He caught her eye in the mirror and smirked, and stripped off his dress shirt without hesitation. Now that she’d seen the scars on his back up close and personal, he was a lot more open about showing them. That felt significant, somehow.  
  
“He’s going to check, you know. He’s going to wonder why you came back here.”  
  
“Let him wonder. It sure as hell shouldn’t be a surprise.” Off came his trousers, and then he crawled into bed, stretching out next to her propped up on his elbow. “How was your day?”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“That doesn’t sound convincing.”  
  
“It’s nothing, it’s just… something weird about my father.”  
  
“Did you have an argument?”  
  
“Not exactly,” she said. “I asked him about my adoption. He told me about how some friend of his left me on his doorstop in the middle of the night. Apparently, if my scar was on my forehead instead of my wrist, you could call me Harry Potter.”  
  
“I know how frustrating it must be to—“  
  
Liz’s eyes narrowed. “You know what? Maybe I’m going about this all wrong. Maybe I should be interrogating you. You probably know everything Sam knows about that night already, don’t you? If not more.”  
  
“Lizzy…” He searched her face, gauging, assessing, all with an undercurrent of something strange in his eyes, something that looked a lot like fear. The wariness she’d noticed in him ever since Sam had fallen ill was out in full force. He was probably worried she was going to punch him again or stab him or worse. She vowed silently never to react like that again. No matter what it was she discovered about him, she’d never raise a hand to him unless it was something he wanted.  
  
“No, it’s OK, I’m sorry. I’m not angry with you. The stress is really getting to me. I keep needing to… lash out.”  
  
“I understand. Believe me. And I’m the easiest target you’ve got. You don’t want to hurt Sam.”  
  
The burn behind her eyes came fierce and quick. “I don’t want to hurt you either,” she said, hoarse and desperate, blinking back hot tears.  
  
“I can take it. Probably deserve it.” Red took one of her hands in both of his, running his thumb over her knuckles. “Lizzy, I…” He trailed off, his voice breaking; he swallowed reflexively, cleared his throat, but still couldn’t make himself say whatever it was he wanted to say.  
  
“What is it?” She cupped his face with her free hand, just below his ear. “Red?”  
  
A deflating puff of air escaped him and he shook his head, his own eyes filling with tears. “I-I can’t.”  
  


* * *

  
  
She wasn’t eavesdropping. Not intentionally. She couldn’t help overhearing them—the safe house really wasn’t all that big.  
  
“I’ll protect her with my dying breath. You know I will.”  
  
“And you promise you’ll tell her, when the time is right?”  
  
“I do.”  
  
“Tell me what?”  
  
Their heads whipped around towards her in the doorway. They both looked guilty, but Red looked almost ashamed. Their agreement was as fresh in his mind as it was in hers, but he clearly wasn’t planning on answering her anyway.  
  
Liz gave him a look that clearly meant, ‘We’ll talk about this later.’  
  
“What’s going on?”  
  
“Lizzy, honey, please sit down. I need to talk to you about something important.”  
  
As soon as she sat, Sam took her hand. His grip was weak, but she could tell he was trying for something stronger. He clenched his trembling hand a few times and tried again.  
  
“I can’t do this anymore, butterball. The cancer’s got me in a chokehold, I gotta tap out.”  
  
“What… What do you mean?”  
  
Sam held her gaze, willed her to understand. Liz felt like she was collapsing in on herself, the wind knocked out of her sails all at once. Oh, she understood, all right. She just didn’t want to. She thought she might vomit.  
  
“I’m sorry, Lizzy. I can’t take another five weeks of this. I don’t have it in me.” His eyes were watery and his voice shaky. “It’s gonna happen whether we like it or not. This is just… faster.”  
  
“I don’t—How’re you—”  
  
“That’s the thing, butterball. I’ll need… help.”  
  
Gradually, the implication sank in. She turned to Red, stricken, but he wouldn’t look at her.  
  
“ _Dad_.”  
  
Sam shook his head. “I couldn’t ask you to do it. I couldn’t put that kind of weight on your shoulders.”  
  
“But you’ll ask him.”  
  
He met Red’s eyes. “He owes me.”


	5. Sam Milhoan - The Anniversary Waltz

Red and Liz sat next to each other in bed, propped up against the headboard on top of the covers. Silence weighed on them, heavy and suffocating. Liz could hear the old fashioned alarm clock on the dresser ticking away, the only sound in the room save for their breathing. If she had something with enough heft within reach, she’d chuck it at the thing to shut it up. Her nerves were frayed enough as it was without the repetitive sound grating on them.  
  
Red was patient as ever waiting for her to speak. There were so many things she wanted to say, to ask, but no matter how hard she tried, no words would come. She worried her scar, rubbing until the skin ached hot, until he took her hand to still it.   
  
“Hurting yourself isn’t going to make any of this easier,” he said, gentle and soft.  
  
She shrugged; it was more a compulsion than a conscious decision at this point, but his strong, solid hand in hers served as an anchor just as well.  
  
“Has anyone ever asked you to do this before?” she wondered.  
  
Red pursed his lips, frowning. “A few times, yes. I’ve never had to go through with it, though; when push came to shove, something always managed to get me off the hook.” A muscle in his jaw jumped. “But it’s not as if I’ve never…” He pulled out of her grasp then and lay his hands limply on his thighs, studying them as if he could see all the blood he had on them. “Sam asked me. Last time, when it got bad. I refused.” He shook his head and said, “He had to get better, for you.”  
  
Liz swallowed around the lump in her throat. Last time. She could have lost him last time. Years ago. She had him years longer than she could have. Think of that. Focus on that.   
  
“It should be me, shouldn’t it? I’m next of kin, this should be my responsibility.”  
  
Red searched her face, his eyebrows raised. “You don’t really want to do it,” he said, incredulous.  
  
She lifted her chin in defiance, a challenge in her eyes. “Neither do you.”  
  
“Of course not. But Sam’s wishes are—”  
  
“—Sam’s wishes.” Liz sagged, hugged her legs to her chest; the fight had gone out of her. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling in the least. “He’s already suffering so much.”  
  
“This is a hell of a situation to be in, Lizzy. It’s never an easy choice to make.”  
  
“I wish it hadn’t come to this. I wish…” Her voice cracked, failed. Red wrapped his arm around her shoulder and she leaned into his warmth, his comfort. “Maybe… Maybe if I had been around more, I could have made him go get checked out sooner and the doctors might have caught it early enough.”  
  
“Lizzy, you are _not_ responsible for Sam’s cancer. I mean, my God, there’s no way to know for sure if finding it earlier even would have helped.” He swallowed hard, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “You can’t save everyone, no matter how much you wish you could. You’ll drive yourself crazy thinking like that.”  
  
He was right. She knew he was right, and yet…  
  
“It’s just… I feel so… _useless_.”   
  
“You’re not useless. You’re here for him. That’s what he needs right now. He needs to live out the rest of his life surrounded by people who care about him. You’re giving him that. What more could you possibly do?” She looked up at him, jaw moving wordlessly; he shook his head and his eyes slid shut, pained, downhearted. “If you would really rather be the one to do it,” he whispered, “I’m sure we could convince him.”  
  
“No. It’s not that I… I’m… I don’t think I _could_ do it. I’d just stand there and… I’ll always want him to stay longer. Even if it’s selfish of me, even if he’s in pain. I would never be able to let him go. If it were up to me… It can’t be up to me.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Red coaxed Liz into allowing him to take her to dinner that night, somewhere different, away from the safe house. She said yes almost without a second thought—she needed the change of scenery desperately and she knew their regular cooking lessons wouldn’t be enough to keep her dark thoughts at bay.   
  
Her usual impulse to feel guilty for leaving Sam was placated when Aunt June agreed to spend a few hours with him while Liz was out. She was glad she wouldn’t have to try to explain Red to her just yet. As far as June knew, the house and the nurse were taken care of by one of Liz’s work colleagues, which wasn’t exactly a lie.   
  
The restaurant Red chose was cozy and intimate, with warm, low lighting and quiet music floating out over the smallish dining room. She’d never been there, never even heard of the place before, which was strange considering she spent a great deal of time in the area growing up and it had been in business for at least twenty years.   
  
Yet another thing to chalk up to Red’s quirky contacts and his love of hidden gems off the beaten path. He knew people everywhere they went and, even more than that, people knew _him_. Liz tried not to feel out of sorts in those moments, despite the fact that she had known him so briefly in the grand scheme of things and it seemed at times she would always be at a disadvantage, that anonymous restaurant owners and shopkeepers would forever know him better than she did.  
  
The food was exceptional, but Liz found she couldn’t really enjoy it properly. She ate only because she knew she would need her strength over the next few days. It was mechanical, perfunctory, nothing more.   
  
Red tried to hide the worry in his eyes as he watched her pick at her meal, but she could feel it all the same. When he suggested she at least try the panna cotta, insisting it was difficult to find a restaurant outside of Italy that made it without using gelatin, she agreed more to ease his mind than out of a desire to experience classic Italian desserts. While they waited for the dessert to be served, Red excused himself to use the men’s room, leaving Liz alone with her thoughts and the soft instrumental music.   
  
One song transitioned into another and she froze in her seat. Recognition washed over her as the familiar notes started to play. Her breath caught in her throat and in an instant, hot tears began running down her cheeks, silent and uncontrollable.  
  
Red emerged from the little alcove that housed the restrooms and was across the room in an instant once he saw the she was crying. “Lizzy, what’s wrong? Did your aunt call?”  
  
She shook her head. “No, no, it’s the song. Sam used to hum it to me whenever I had a nightmare.”  
  
Red breathed a sigh of relief, stopping to listen for a moment before his eyes lit up in recognition as well. Instead of taking his seat again, he held out his hand to her, palm up. She looked at it, befuddled, for a long moment before she realized what he was doing. He was asking her to dance.  
  
Allowing herself to be pulled up to her feet, she rested her head on his shoulder and he began to sway her gently back and forth, less a formal dance, more of a movement of comfort.  
  
“Can I ask you something?” he said, softly.  
  
“Mmm.”  
  
“Why this song?”  
  
Liz smiled into his shoulder and lifted her head to meet his eyes for a second. “I was kind of obsessed with _I Love Lucy_ as a kid,” she explained. “There’s an episode where Lucy is mad at Ricky for forgetting their anniversary and he makes it up to her by singing _The Anniversary Waltz_ to her at a big Hollywood nightclub. Four year old me thought it was the sweetest thing. I used to ask Sam if I’d find someone who’d do things like that for me when I grew up.”  
  
“You daydreamed about how your future spouse would make up with you after a fight?”  
  
“Well, it’s not your run-of-the-mill childhood fantasy, I’ll give you that.” She sighed, tightening her arms around him as they continued to sway in a lazy circle. “There wasn’t much in my life that felt permanent to me then, but I could always count on being able to turn on a TV wherever I was and Lucy and Ricky and Fred and Ethel would be there waiting for me.”  
   
Red body tensed against her minutely, his steps faltering just the slightest bit, but he recovered quickly, bending so his lips were level with her ear. Quietly, he started to sing along with the music.  
  
“ _Let this be the anthem to our future years. Through millions of smiles, and a few little tears. Tell me I may always dance The Anniversary Waltz._ ” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “ _With you._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There seem to be a few different versions of The Anniversary Waltz, but I chose to have Red sing the lyrics used in I Love Lucy, because that's what Liz would be most familiar with.


	6. Sam Milhoan - Cigars and Sinatra

“Pour me a couple fingers of that, will you?”   
  
Liz looked up from her book to see Sam gesture to the bottle of scotch Red had left on his dresser after they shared a drink the night before.  
  
“Sure,” she said. It was early still, but she certainly wasn’t going to begrudge him anything at this point.   
  
After only the slightest hesitation, she poured herself a glass as well. She kept getting tripped up on memories like _The Anniversary Waltz_ , little facts and anecdotes she would soon look back on with sadness and grief instead of mere nostalgia. Sam seemed to deal with her random bouts of tears with an odd sort of tranquility—he’d come to terms with his imminent mortality in a way she certainly hadn’t. She needed to find some of that tranquility herself. She doubted she’d find it at the bottom of a bottle, but she figured it was worth trying.  
  
Sam sipped his drink and hummed his approval of the flavor. “So… what’s on your mind, butterball? You haven’t turned a page in twenty minutes.”  
  
Liz swirled the alcohol in her glass, admiring how it reflected the light, and sighed. Caught red handed, so to speak. Truth be told, it would’ve been easier to tell Sam what _wasn’t_ on her mind.   
  
“You know, Red talks about you like you’ve been part of his life since he was a kid.”  
  
“Yeah,” he said, looking thoughtful. “Guess I have.”  
  
“Well, you know how he is with his stories—it’s hard to separate out the facts from the embellishments. Would you tell me about him? Please? The unvarnished truth would be nice for once. This might be my only real chance.”  
  
Sam rubbed his free hand over the scruff on his chin. “God, where do I start?”  
  
“The beginning seems like a good idea. How did you two meet?”  
  
“Well, that’s easy enough. He was an army brat back when I first joined up. His dad was stationed same place I was.  
  
“We didn’t really meet officially for a while, but we lived near each other and saw one another pretty often in passing. We exchanged maybe a couple dozen words at that point, sort of a ‘Hey, mister, what’s the name of this song? Who sings it?’ kind of thing. Cute kid. If you’ve seen pictures of his daughter, they looked a lot alike. His hair wasn’t curly, though, but, God, did he have a lot of it!” Sam said, with a grin. He took a swig of his drink, becoming more animated by the second as he settled into his storytelling.  
  
“Anyway, one day I come home and someone’s got music blasting. Which was normal enough for a Friday night, you know, it happens—at least until somebody complains about the noise. By the time I’m outside my apartment trying to unlock the door, I swear the music’s coming from inside. And, sure enough, it was. So obviously someone’s broken into my place, but I look around and nothing’s missing. Besides the Sinatra spinning on the record player in the living room, nothing’s out of place.   
  
“Not quite true, as it turned out. I eventually found the little towhead lounging on my fire escape with his nose buried in a book, listening to the music through the open window. He had some gall, I’ll tell you that. He sure knows how to make a first impression.”  
  
Liz huffed a laugh. “Tell me about it.”  
  
They talked on and off for hours, whenever Sam got a burst of energy. The picture he painted of young Red, the charming, mischievous, intelligent boy, full of life and wonder at the world… Liz still saw those qualities in the grown man every day. But his easy ability to allow himself to be known, to trust someone, unfettered by suspicion and fear? She couldn’t help mourn the loss of that, of his innocence.  
  
“When Red was about ten or eleven, he got caught smoking cigars with this weird little girl he was smitten with. His dad would have skinned him alive if he found out, so I covered for him, told the girl’s parents he got them from me.”  
  
“It was sweet of you to lie for him.”  
  
“It wasn’t a lie! The little bastard stole them from me when my back was turned because she always wanted to try one and woe be it for Raymond Reddington to pass up the opportunity to show off to a girl he has a crush on.”  
  
Liz’s lips curled into a hint of a smile as she was taken back to a cafe in Montreal and a cocktail that tasted like springtime, ordered in perfect French.   
  
“When you come down to it, he’s always been a hopeless romantic, even if his idea of romance is a little skewed. If a girl could beat him up and steal his lunch money, he’d follow her around like a lost puppy, trying to impress her until she either gave him a black eye or fell in love with him.”  
  
“Or both,” she said with a smirk and a quirked eyebrow, raising her glass in jest before taking a swig.  
  
Sam gave a wheezy chuckle. “Yeah, you know, you’ve got a point there.” He searched her face, a wistful smile curving his lips. “Do you love him, Lizzy?”  
  
Her mirth died a slow death as her face fell and her stomach plummeted to the floor. “I think I might.”  
  
Sam’s brow furrowed. “You don’t seem too happy about that.”  
  
“Happy? I’m terrified,” she said. She could feel a surge of adrenaline rush through her veins; it was freeing, somehow, to put these feelings into words, freeing but scary all the same. “Do I even really know how to be in a relationship anymore? Did I ever? I mean, even a normal one, and ours sure as hell isn’t _normal_. I don’t want to wake up three months from now and realize this is just the weirdest rebound relationship in the history of the world. I don’t think it is, don’t get me wrong. He makes me feel so many things that no one else ever has. But I can’t help having doubts.”  
  
“Doubts are healthy. I’m sure he has them, too.” He laughed anxiously. “God, I hope so.”  
  
“Have you met the man? His mind is like a cesspool of self-loathing. His doubts have doubts. He doesn’t think he deserves to be with me in the slightest; if he could find a way to punish himself for it without having a negative effect on me in the process, I’m sure he would.”   
  
“How about your colleagues? Do they know about you two? I can’t imagine they’d be too pleased.”  
  
Liz winced, remembering how foolish they’d been at the beginning and the awkward confrontation she’d had with Meera. “A couple of them found out a few weeks ago, but thankfully, they’ve been discreet about it. The rest of them, well… If they ever find out, best case scenario, they think I need my head examined. Worst case, they arrest me. Red’s a valuable asset, so they’d probably avoid doing anything to rock the boat, but you really never know.”  
  
Sam gave a low whistle and shook his head. “But despite all the risks, you’re still together. Seems to me you both think this is worth it.”  
  
She nodded. “Seems to me you’re probably right.”


	7. Sam Milhoan - Sam's Wishes

“I need to apologize, Lizzy.”  
  
Liz blinked, thrown off by the abrupt subject change. “What for?”  
  
Sam swallowed hard and met her eyes. “Tom,” he said.   
  
“Tom? Dad, you couldn’t’ve possibly known…”  
  
He shook his head, vehement. “You’re not the first person to fall victim to a setup like that. I’ve seen it before, what he did to you. I should’ve recognized it, tried to spare you somehow. You think you’ve found someone to build your life with only to find out that person isn’t at all who you think they are. That kind of betrayal can twist and break a person’s psyche. I’m surprised you’re handling it as well as you are. Thankful, but surprised.”  
  
“It could’ve been worse,” she said. “It could’ve happened in five years, ten years, after we had a family. Besides, I haven’t been dealing with it alone. I’ve had Red with me, helping in his own way.”  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, he’d be good at that.” Sam held her gaze, a strangely insistent expression on his face, as if he was willing her to understand something unsaid.   
  
Then, all at once, she _did_. Sam relaxed visibly when her eyes widened in surprise and he gave her one almost imperceptible nod of his head, encouraging her to keep traveling down that mental road. She felt something inside her shift and realign itself as this new truth ran roughshod through her mind, rearranging all that she knew and thought she knew about Raymond Reddington. Because if what Sam was implying was true…  
  
Red didn’t abandon his wife. His wife had never really _been_ his wife. And his daughter…   
  
‘ _You could be raising a child with that man right now, Lizzy._ ’  
  
Liz felt sick, hot and cold and clammy. In her mind’s eye, she saw Red across the table from her in a sunny breakfast nook, holding her hand and talking about the devastation of betrayal. She saw the lingering hurt haunting his eyes that morning, but she didn’t understand. God, if she knew then what she knew now…   
  
Shakily, she set her glass down on Sam’s nightstand before she either spilled it all over herself or let it shatter on the floor. She stared off across the room without seeing anything, wiping furiously at the silent tears running down her cheeks.   
  
“There’s nothing about that in his file, nothing at all that would—”   
  
“But there wouldn’t be, would there? They’re not gonna advertise that kind of thing, kinda puts a damper on the possibility of doing it again.”  
  
“I’m sorry, but what… Who would do that to him? It can’t have been anything like what happened to me. Tom was an opportunistic spy who saw a weakness in Red’s defenses and jumped at the chance to exploit it for the right price. It wasn’t some big conspiracy. There’s nothing special about me other than my connection to Red.”  
  
“Well, you know I’m gonna disagree with that part, butterball, but I see what you’re saying,” he said, smiling slightly. “There might not’ve been the same motivation behind it, but the people who did this to him, they pulled it from the same playbook as the people who did it to you.” He shrugged. “You wanted to know more about Red. It’s a long damn story. Complicated. Real sad. What he was like as a kid is only a foundation; it doesn’t really give you the whole picture.  
  
“Listen, I’m probably breaking a confidence here telling you what I’m telling you, but I don’t give a damn. I figure since I won’t be around much longer, I gotta give you as much to work with as possible before I go. Because you deserve to know, and, like you said, you can never tell how much he’ll ever be willing to admit to you. He’s got a lot of guilt, Lizzy. Shame, too. All the crap he’s been through made him who he is, but not all of it’s easy to share.”  
  
“What kind of things are we talking about here?”  
  
“Things he’s not proud of. Things he’s embarrassed about. Thing’s he’d probably rather no one ever know.”   
  
“You sure you’re comfortable with this?”  
  
“The worst he can do is kill me for it and he’s already gonna do that. You’re my daughter. You come first.”  
  
Liz took a slow, deep breath and let it out through her nose. What could be worse than the horrors that were written in his file? She leaned back in her chair and nodded. “OK. Let’s do this, then.”  
  
“Last time Red and I really talked for years was the day he graduated from the academy. He was so… proud. In an aloof kind of way, though, you know? With a sense of purpose he never really had before. I’ve always wondered if they already approached him by then.”  
  
“Approached him for what?”  
  
“You know he was being fast-tracked for Admiral? Back in those days, kids like him were in high demand for some very hush-hush, high-stakes intelligence work. Black-ops, cover stories, aliases, the whole nine yards. He had some particular skills they found useful—his memory, his ear for languages, his charm and his unapologetic audacity… He was perfect for the type of work they did.  
  
“Turns out, he was also the perfect scapegoat. They used him for their dirty work, took advantage of his youth and inexperience. His loyalty. When a job went bad, they painted a target on his back and tossed him to the wolves. To these people, everyone is expendable. They took him for everything he was worth and washed their hands of him.”  
  
“I don’t understand. Where does his ex-wife come into all of this?”  
  
“The powers that be, they thought a family would ground him, make him easier to manipulate. That way they had something to hold over him if he ever started to get wise to their game, something they could threaten to take away.”  
  
“Or follow through with taking away.”    
  
“Exactly,” he said. “He fell pretty hard for Carla, but then again that was part of the plan. He always had a type, and they exploited that. Which made it worse when he found out.”  
  
“What did he do?”  
  
“By that point there wasn’t really anything he _could_ do. They were trapped. He didn’t really blame Carla so much. They used her as much as they used him, it was never… personal. I think that’s why he couldn’t really hate her for it, that and the fact that she felt guilty enough to come clean eventually. The two of them were miserable together, but they had their daughter to think of. They both loved that little girl. Nothing else really mattered. Then everything went to hell and he lost them, too.”  
  
“He wasn’t the first person they did this to and he certainly wasn’t the last, but he was the first who not only survived the aftermath, but _thrived_. By rights, he shouldn’t have made it. But he had something to keep him going, a drive they didn’t anticipate. They underestimated him; somehow he managed to rise from the ashes, stronger than before, dusted himself off, and became the man you know today.”   
  
_Stronger in the broken places_ , she thought absently. “It was revenge, wasn’t it? Revenge kept him going. One of his stories… He made it pretty clear.”  
  
Sam nodded. “At first, yeah. I tried to tell him it wasn’t going to make it any better in the long run, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He had to find out for himself. Come to think of it, you two really do have a lot in common.”  
  
“What, we’re both a little reckless and pigheaded?”  
  
“Yeah,” he said, with a wistful smile. “I’d warn you not to let him walk all over you, but I really think you’ve got that covered.”  
  
Liz frowned, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “Sometimes I think we’re both too damaged for this,” she said. “I mean, Jesus, if the longest relationships either of us ever had were lies, what chance do we have?”  
  
“I think when he decides to dedicate himself to something, there’s not a soul on earth who could convince him to give up on it. He’s in it for the long haul, Lizzy. And I think that sounds pretty familiar, if you ask me.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“So what have you two been talking about?” Red asked, feigning nonchalance and innocence, which was an… interesting look on him if there ever was one. His hackles had been raised since he pulled up a chair at Sam’s bedside after he returned from whatever it was he did during the day. (Liz suspected he was quietly making Sam’s funeral arrangements.)  
  
Sam gave him a teasing grin. “Oh, a little of everything… the future, the past, you.”  
  
Red shot a quick glance at Liz. “Nothing too humiliating, I hope.”  
  
“Well, you’re gonna have to be the judge of that. I told her the cigar story. You know the one, you and that girl, what was her name? Maggie something?”  
  
“Marnie. Marnie Petersen.”  
  
“That’s it! God, I’ve been bailing you out of trouble since the day we met,” Sam said with a laugh that quickly morphed into a hacking cough. Red helped him take a drink from the glass of water on his nightstand, but he kept his eyes on Liz, who in turn kept her eyes on him. In fact, she hadn’t been able to tear her gaze away from him since he knocked quietly on the doorjamb, which was perhaps what raised his hackles in the first place.  
  
“Do I have something on my face, Lizzy?”  
  
“Nope. Nothing,” she said, sure that her feigned innocence came across just as improbable as his had. She wondered if he would let the matter drop, or if he’d ask her later just what it was that made her want to look at him like she could unravel whatever mysteries surrounded him if she stared at him long enough.  
  
The mysteries Sam unraveled for her forever changed the way she thought of Red already, gave her the insight she needed to allow herself to trust her instincts about him without her usual reservations.   
  
Red had been set up, in more ways than one. When he was younger than she was. It was a miracle that he survived, that he was even here today to look at her with this suspicious wariness.  
  
If she thought life had been singularly unfair to her, he was without a doubt giving her a run for her money in that regard. If there were any lingering subconscious worries that he would eventually abandon her the way he abandoned his family, well… they were gone now.   
  
And if she held Red just a little tighter that night, she didn’t think he noticed. He certainly didn’t complain.  
  


* * *

  
  
Red rolled the dice and started moving his little pewter top hat around the board, slowing down when he realized where his roll landed him. Boardwalk. Again. He groaned. “That’s it, that’s a loaded die, it’s the only explanation.”   
  
“Cough it up, Reddington.” Sam held out an unsteady hand, waiting for Red’s payment.  
  
Liz watched Red as he mentally calculated the value of his remaining property. He already mortgaged half of them to pay the last time and he was flat out of cash. He tossed his cards on the board and threw up his hands in defeat. She grinned. The Concierge of Crime losing at _Monopoly_ to her mild-mannered father. What a thing to behold.  
  
This was family. This was belonging, in a way she had never really known. And it was about to end. They’d been playing for hours, partially because it was a long game by nature—‘Monopoly? _Damn, I guess I’ll be here another week then._ ’—and partially because they had to take frequent breaks for Sam to rest. They all knew it was only delaying the inevitable. It hung over them like a cloud, grated on them every time Sam had another coughing jag.  
  
Liz was struck by the sudden, absurd wish for Red to have turned up sooner—before Tom, before everything that had recently been torn down in her life was even built up in the first place—so that maybe, just maybe, she could’ve had more days like this.  
  
She and Red quietly packed up the game board and accessories and straightened the bedclothes around Sam, who watched them with a deep, resigned sadness.  
  
“So this is it,” he said, hoarsely.  
  
Red sat heavily in his chair, picking at the stitching on Sam’s quilt. “You sure about this, Sam?”  
  
“As sure as I’ve ever been about anything. Come on,”—he patted Red’s hand—“I always said you’d be the death of me.” Red gave a sharp, thick laugh, blinking back tears.   
  
Sam turned to Liz and reached for her hand, which she gave him without hesitation. His hand felt so very frail.  
  
“I’m gonna have to trust this asshole to do right by you, aren’t I, butterball?” he asked, nodding his head towards Red with a weak smile; she tried to return it without much success. “I love you more than life itself, Lizzy. I know I haven’t always done a good job showing it, but I hope… I hope somewhere along the line I managed to be a good enough father to you anyway.”   
  
“Daddy, you… you were my whole world. You gave me everything I could ever need. No matter what I did, you were always there, to give me love and safety and support… I didn’t always make it easy for you, either. I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I can’t just… pick up the phone and call you anymore.”  
  
“You’ll be OK, butterball. I know you will. You’re strong enough for all of us, even if it might not seem like it to you sometimes. You’re stronger’n me, that’s for damn sure.” He gave her hand a feeble squeeze. “I wish I had it in me to stick around longer, honey, but I’ve gotta go.”  
  
He looked back and forth between her and Red for a long, silent moment, tears welling in his sunken eyes.   
  
“Take care of each other,” he said gruffly at long last, and then he nodded, stiff and resolute, bracing himself against what was to come.   
  
Red punched a code into his IV pump to unlock the dosage and gradually dialed it up. Sam’s labored breathing slowly began to ease. His weak grip on Liz’s hand slackened and his eyes lost their focus. His body stilled, his chest fell one final time and didn’t rise.   
  
Liz pressed a teary kiss to the back of his hand and laid it down on the bed.   
  
She glanced at Red across Sam’s bed through her tears. He closed Sam’s eyes gently, holding his hand across them. His shoulders shook as he tried to cover his own face with his free hand. Quickly she rounded the bed and reached for him; he buried his face in her side and sobbed, pulling her tightly against him.  
  
“I’m sorry, Lizzy. I’m so sorry.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Liz floated through the rest of the day in a haze, simply going through the motions of living by rote. Night fell and brought with it the prospect of sleep, or lack thereof, or nightmares. She wasn’t sure which awaited her and in what combination.   
  
She stood in front of her dresser and stared at nothing in particular. Red helped her slip her things off and get dressed for bed when she found herself drifting, when the numbness and confusion of loss robbed her of what little was left of her focus. He held up the blankets for her so she could climb into bed and curl up next to him.  
  
“You know that vacation we were talking about?” she asked, trying for a light, carefree tone, but her voice cracked in the middle and she started to cry in earnest. “I think I could use it right about now.”   
  
Red tucked his legs up under hers and wrapped his arm around her waist. He pressed his lips to her hair, trying to sooth her as best as he could. Through her sobs, she became aware that he was crying silently behind her; his tears were already cool when they ran down onto her neck.


	8. Sam Milhoan - The Funeral

Liz had already showered and dressed for the day ahead, but her mind was far away. She barely picked at her breakfast, took only a few nibbles of toast and jam, and avoided coffee like the plague. Her fragile emotions just couldn’t take the added stimulation from the caffeine.   
  
Now she stood in front of her dresser trying to give herself a whispered pep talk in the mirror. Sam’s neighbors and friends and extended family were mostly strangers to her; with the exception of Aunt June and her husband and maybe a cousin or two, she had only met the people she would see today in passing, if at all. She dealt with strangers at work everyday, but this was different.   
  
Red knocked lightly on the door, more to avoid startling her than to ask permission to come in; he came up beside her and rested his hand at the small of her back. “Dembe said the car will be here in fifteen minutes.”   
  
Liz nodded, meeting his eyes in the mirror. He had on one of Sam’s old, worn ties with a crisp white shirt and a black three-piece suit. Turning towards him, she reached up to straighten the tie, not because it was crooked, but because she needed to do something with her hands.  
  
Sliding her hand to cradle the back of his head, she buried her face in his neck and breathed until his scent filled her lungs, cologne and aftershave and _Red_. “I don’t think I can do this,” she murmured.   
  
His hand had found its way up to the middle of her back and she focused on its warm and soothing motion. “Of course you can,” he said.  
  
She pulled back far enough to see his face again, but the concern in his eyes was too much to bear and her gaze skittered away quickly. “See, somewhere deep down I know that, and yet…” She trailed off, running her thumb along the pick stitch on the hem of his lapel.  
  
“You’re always so fascinated with my suits.”  
  
Liz shrugged. “The fabric is much nicer than mine.”  
  
“You have to let me buy you one. My tailor will spoil you, you’ll never go back to off-the-rack again.”  
  
She opened her mouth to refuse, but couldn’t bring herself to stop rubbing the fine fabric between her fingers.  
  
“Just one in black,” he said, sensing a crack in her resolve. “Maybe charcoal gray, navy… And you can’t go wrong with linen for summer.”  
  
“That’s a whole wardrobe.”  
  
“You got me. My ulterior motive. I long to lavish you with all the luxuries you so richly deserve.”  
  
“That’s the nice way of saying you think I can’t dress myself.” He made a noncommittal noise in his throat and she snorted. “Thank you,” she said, resting her palm on his chest. “For distracting me for a few minutes.”  
  
He pressed his lips to her temple and rested his cheek against her hair. “For the record, the offer really is on the table, should you choose to take me up on it.”  
  
“If I suddenly start wearing an entirely new wardrobe, especially one as high quality as yours, people will jump to conclusions.”  
  
“That you’re using some of your inheritance to better yourself and you took my advice on tailors?”  
  
“Ressler and Cooper won’t think it’s that innocent. And we’ll never be able to wipe the knowing smirk off Meera’s face.”  
  
“Ah, the life of an upstanding citizen is so complicated.” He tucked an errant piece of hair behind her ear. “Why don’t you and I run off together and forget all that?”  
  
Shaking her head, she leaned in and brushed her lips against his. “I wish that wasn’t so tempting.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“You know, you’d blend in a lot better if you didn’t spend all your time lurking back here like the grim reaper waiting to take him away.”  
  
Red’s head shot up with a start. He looked twitchy and strange, uncomfortable in his skin in a way Liz had never witnessed before. It was difficult to see him like that and not offer him some sort of physical comfort; touch played such a major role in the way they related to and interacted with each other that to withhold it put her at a loss.  
  
“Been there, done that,” he said with a grimace and sighed, running his hand over the hair on the back of his head. “I’ve been surrounded by death for over two decades. Wakes and funerals, not so much. There’s something about the formality of it that… I don’t know. It rubs me the wrong way. Like the only proper way to honor the dead is to stand in a receiving line and wait for people who haven’t even thought of the person in years to offer condolences. To reduce a man as vital as Sam to a few rote words of sympathy… It seems like a disservice.”  
  
“This isn’t my favorite thing in the world either, but we’ve got to get it over with.” She held out her hand. Still, he hesitated. _To hell with it_ , she thought, and took his hand anyway, guiding him with her over to the small crowd.   
  
“Come on, like we talked about earlier,” she said in a low voice out of the corner of her mouth. “The sooner we get through this, the sooner we can leave.”  
  
“Sure, just as long as we don’t—”   
  
“As I live and breathe! Is that who I think it is? Ray?”   
  
“Oh, here we go,” Liz said under her breath when she recognized the voice. Red’s eyes widened in barely contained panic before he was able to gain control of his expression and paste his mask back into place. She now had the rare chance to see Red play a role she’d never seen him play before—himself. Or whatever his extrapolation was of who he would be if his life hadn’t taken such a tragic turn.  
  
“Aunt June.” He leaned in to kiss her cheek.   
  
“I am so sorry,” June said, “I can’t remember your last name.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it; it changes often enough, there’s no sense trying.”  
  
“Oh, that’s right. What is it you do again? ”  
  
“Naval intelligence,” he said; the lie came easy because it was once the truth.   
  
“Lizzy, this rascal here was your father’s favorite…” June trailed off when she noticed their clasped hands. “Oh. But you already know each other.” Her smile faded to one of polite interest, subtly scrambling to figure out what to make of their relationship without asking outright.    
  
“Oh, Ray? He’s been my anchor through everything,” Liz said, patting his shoulder with her free hand. “Whatever I’ve needed—a friend, a confidant, a shoulder to cry on—he’s been there.”   
  
Red brought Liz’s other hand up and pressed his lips to the back of it, holding her gaze with such blatant tenderness, she blushed and looked away. Aunt June’s uncertain smile softened.  
  
“Did you two meet through Sam or…?”  
  
“A few months back, I was on loan to Lizzy’s department because they thought I could offer some insight on a few difficult cases,” Red explained. “There I found myself working alongside this brilliant young agent—fiercely intelligent, intuitive, driven… She captivated me from the moment I laid eyes on her. Imagine my surprise when I discovered she was _the_ Lizzy Keen.”  
  
“So _you’re_ the mysterious work colleague who made Sam’s hospice arrangements. I wondered about that.” June exchanged an odd glance with Liz, in a sort of silent reprimand for not filling her in sooner. “You were still with your ex when you met, then, weren’t you?”  
  
Liz gritted her teeth. “Like I said, Ray’s been there with me through everything. Tom wasn’t so quick to try to take advantage of the situation with the full weight of Ray’s allies bearing down on him. He’s a useful man to know.”  
  
“I’m surprised to hear you’re still using Keen. I would’ve thought after that terrible business you’d be back to Scott as soon as you could.”  
  
Liz forced a smile and started to answer, but Red interrupted, rubbing the backs of his fingers up and down her forearm in a plea for her to stay calm while he spoke.  
  
“Well, Aunt June, I’ve been trying to convince her that her choice for a surname isn’t quite so limited, but she’s not ready to take that plunge again just yet. Perhaps someday.”  
  
“Oh?” June turned to Liz with her brows raised, a glint of excitement in her eyes cutting through the fog of grief and nosiness.  
  
Liz shook her head, looking at Red with a warm but dismissive fondness, like they’d had this discussion a thousand times. “I filed the paperwork for the name change last week,” she explained. “Please, don’t let him convince you to expect a wedding invitation in the mail any time soon. I want to make sure I know a man inside and out before I head down that road again.”  
  
“I guess I’ll just have to make myself an open book from now on, won’t I?”  
  
“Be careful, I might hold you to that.”  
  
An awkward silence fell over the three of them once they ran out of topics that could be quickly and civilly covered under the pretense of catching up.  
  
“Well, I’m just gonna let you two go. I know you probably have a long day ahead of you. Ray…” June pulled him into a tight hug and said something into his ear that Liz didn’t quite catch. Louder, she said, “I’m sorry we had to meet again under these circumstances.”  
  
She pulled Liz aside and hugged her, too, with the same bone-crushing force that belied her size that Liz remembered as a child. “You hang onto that man, Lizzy,” she whispered. “He’s one of the good ones.” Liz smiled and nodded, because she was afraid if she opened her mouth she would start laughing hysterically. This entire day was absurd enough as it was without adding an outburst of inappropriate laughter to the mix.   
  
Once June wandered off in search of her husband, Liz looked up at Red with an eyebrow raised.  
  
“‘Aunt June’?”   
  
“There was enough of a gap, she insisted on it.” He scowled. “Don’t look at me like that, she’s _your_ aunt.”  
  
“You were Sam’s favorite what?”  
  
“That’s a story for another time.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Liz and Red sat on the big back porch of the old safe house, sipping warm milk spiked with whiskey and vanilla, and trying to unwind after the long, emotionally draining day. Liz would likely never see the place again after that night, which was a mixed blessing as far as she was concerned. It was cozy and beautiful, but she doubted she’d ever be able to forget that Sam died there.     
  
She bumped her shoulder into Red’s to get his attention. “What did Aunt June say to you before we left?”   
  
Red took a long sip from his drink and took his time swallowing. “She assured me that if I ever hurt you, I would regret it.” Liz tried to imagine Aunt June of all people threatening one of the FBI’s most wanted criminals and suppressed a giggle.  
  
“You let her believe we’ve talked about marriage.”  
  
“I was trying to show her my intentions are honorable.”  
  
“What century is this again?”  
  
“You lost your husband and your father in quick succession. She’s bound to worry. Might as well put her mind at ease.”  
  
“Even if it’s a lie.”  
  
Red twitched a smile. “You could think of it as a proposal if it makes you feel better.”  
  
His words hit Liz like a punch to the solar plexus. “Jesus, Red. You… We can’t…”  
  
“I know.” He took her hand in his, much like he might if he were actually proposing. “My intentions _are_ honorable, Lizzy. We don’t have to be married for that to be true.”  
  
He sat back and held her hand as the sun began to sink below the trees; Liz was hyper aware of his thumb stroking slowly—up and down, up and down—along the length of her ring finger.  
  
“Red?”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“Penny for your thoughts?”  
  
“You won’t like it.”  
  
“Try me.”   
  
“If you came back with a ring, do you think anyone would question it? The obvious explanation would be that it was an old family heirloom you inherited and you—”  
  
“We’re not engaged, Red. I’m not wearing your ring.”  
  
“I told you you wouldn’t like it.” He laced their fingers together. “I would marry you, you know. If that’s what you wanted. Everything that’s mine is yours anyway, I would make it official in a heartbeat.”  
  
Everything that was his? It was difficult to wrap her mind around it. He had… He was…   
  
He would kill for her. He _had_. He’d probably die for her. Tears welled in her eyes, sudden and unexpected. God forbid he ever got it in his head to do that.   
  
“How?”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“How would you do it, if you could? How would you propose? Would you plan something big and flashy or would it just be the two of us? Would you go down on one knee?”  
  
Red studied her face, silent and searching, for a long, charged moment. “Well, to start with, I’d spend ages looking for the right ring. At first, it would just be an idle fantasy; wherever I went, whenever I had a chance, I’d poke around. Just in case. But then one day I’d find it and it wouldn’t be a fantasy anymore. I wouldn’t be able to pass it up.”  
  
“Once I found it, I would keep it on me whenever I could, especially when we were together, just waiting for the perfect moment to come up. Days would go by. Weeks. Even months. No moment would ever feel good enough for something so important.” He cleared his throat and continued. “That little velvet box would become a touchstone for me. It would give me something to live for in difficult times, something to look forward to even when everything else was going to hell. ‘I have to make it through this; someday I’m going to propose.’ But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.  
  
“Until finally a day would come and something would make the decision for me.”  
  
Liz swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Sam wouldn’t be there to give me away this time.”  
  
Red shook his head. “He’ll always be there.”  
  
“Do you really believe that?”  
  
“I do. I have to.”  
  
Liz leaned so she could rest her head on his shoulder. “He can never experience another sunset. And I feel guilty because I can. How screwed up is that?”  
  
“Survivor’s guilt can be a bitch. The trick is not to let it paralyze you. What good is it to survive if you don’t take the opportunity to _live_? Sam experienced his share of beauty and happiness while he was alive. Now it’s your turn.”  
  
“I guess you’re right.” A beat. “Red? Can you do something for me?”  
  
“Anything.”  
  
“You knew a side of Sam I never got a chance to know. Tell me about him. Tell me some stories.”


	9. Anslo Garrick - An Unexpected Guest

Red clenched his hands into tight fists, pulling at the slippery silk tied snugly around his wrists. Lizzy drew her fingernails up and down his thighs, tugging gently at the hair there as she teased him, bringing him closer and closer to ecstasy with nothing but her warm breath washing over him, gusts of air heavy with humidity that sent shivers up his spine as his skin cooled again.   
  
Lizzy traced her way up his chest, careful to avoid his sensitive nipples, choosing to slide her fingers into his chest hair and pull on it lightly like she had done with the hair on his legs. She pressed an open-mouth kiss to the middle of his chest, then another and another—lower, higher, on his belly, or his shoulder, his biceps, his rib cage. He couldn’t anticipate where she would strike next and the thick, patterned silk tied carefully over his eyes ensured that any attempts at guessing would fail.  
  
He wouldn’t ask her to touch him. That would ruin the fun, no matter how long it took her to end this delicious torture.   
  
When she finally decided to suck him into her mouth, it was without any warning at all; it nearly tore a scream from his throat. He was completely and utterly shocked that he didn’t come immediately.  
  
Red was so very close to the edge that any one swipe or press of Lizzy’s tongue or slide of her fingers around him might push him right over it. Surely she could tell, must taste the evidence of his impending climax, but on she went, dancing closer and closer to the razor sharp point of no return. Right when he thought there was no more he could possibly bear, she pulled back, squeezed him _just so_ the way he taught her, and the urge receded.  
  
She crawled up his body and straddled his lap, giving him tantalizing hints of heat and wetness. She whispered absolutely filthy sweet nothings into his ear; her teasing breath now danced across his neck as she spoke, leaving him panting.   
  
Then she began lowering herself onto him with agonizing slowness. He marveled at her willpower, knowing full well how her impatience could get the better of her at the best of times. When she settled fully against him at last, she let out a moan so deep he felt it reverberate through her from the inside out.   
  
He needed to see her.  
  
He stretched his neck as far as he could to hook the makeshift blindfold over a thumb and pull it off his head.   
  
Her eyes were closed, he noticed with a lurch in his stomach. He expected her to be watching him. The sight of her with her head thrown back, rocking against him in wild abandon was almost enough to tip him over the edge.   
  
Eyes still closed, Lizzy brought her hands up to caress her own breasts. Red’s hands curled again into fists; if he concentrated hard enough, he could almost feel the soft skin there as if her fingers were his own. She was rough with her nipples, obviously relishing twinges of pain with her pleasure just as much as he did, judging by the way she clenched tighter around him with every twist of her fingers.  
  
If his hands were free he could help her along, could knead and squeeze her ass and encourage the speed of her rolling hips, but for now he had only his imagination. She was close, though, as close as he was. It wouldn’t take much at this point, for either of them.  
  
“Lizzy,” he said, his voice rough and ragged from his own moans. Her eyes popped open at last to find him staring back at her. Immediately, she came apart around him; he was helpless to do anything but follow her.  
  
She collapsed against his chest, and licked what must have been a salty stripe up his sweat-slick neck, sending another spike of pleasure down his spine, before sealing it with a kiss.  
  
“Let me go,” he said, staring at her hungrily. “I need to return the favor.”  
  
She gave a breathless chuckle. “I’d pass out.”  
  
“Is that such a bad thing?”  
  
Slapping him halfheartedly, she stretched out next to him and pillowed her head on his chest. “I know you can get out of those if you want to,” she said, her speech slurring with sleep. “I can’t move.”  
  
Red easily slipped out of his silky restraints and gathered Lizzy against him; he bent his neck to drop a kiss to the top of her head. Yes, a vacation was just what they needed.  
  


* * *

  
  
Donald Ressler drummed his fingers against his thigh as he watched the floor number indicators in the elevator light and dim one by one. He checked his watch, and checked it again when he realized he hadn’t really registered what it said the first time.  
  
Keen was missing. He wasn’t sure for how long. The last time he had spoken to her was the day after her father’s funeral. Two days after the funeral, Reddington’s chip placed him in Germany, while Keen had ostensibly stayed in Nebraska to spend time with relatives. Nobody had seen or heard from her since. It had been almost a week.  
  
Discreet inquiries placed Keen at various restaurants around town before her father’s death, usually accompanied by a man who matched Reddington’s description, but any attempts to gather further information resulted in dead ends, with the people being questioned clamming up across the board.  
  
There had been no answer at Keen’s father’s house when Ressler checked. No one had put it on the market, but from the outside, it certainly didn’t look like anyone spent any time there since the man had fallen ill.  
  
If Ressler was honest with himself, he was worried, perhaps even a little frightened. Keen had disappeared on his watch. It was entirely possible Reddington would kill him over this. Suddenly, his bright idea to drop by unannounced and alone didn’t sound like the wisest move on his part.   
  
The elevator dinged loudly enough to make him flinch, announcing its arrival at his chosen floor. Well, there was no going back now.   
  
Ressler noticed Reddington as soon as he stepped out of the elevator into the private hotel bar. He was busy bending the bartender’s ear with some tall tale or another, looking more disheveled than Ressler had ever seen him on a day when he wasn’t obviously running for his life.  
  
“Reddington!”  
  
Reddington turned away from his schmoozing and clocked onto Ressler’s face across the room.   
  
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” he said under his breath, but Ressler could make out the words on his lips; louder, he called out, “Donald! I didn’t think you would make it!”   
  
Even through his flamboyant false cheer, his exasperation was plainly evident. Normally, Ressler would take great pleasure in cramping his style, but today he just wanted to find his partner and maybe avoid being murdered in the process.  
  
Reddington took a few quick strides to cross the room and pulled Ressler into an awkward, half-hug, made more awkward because his hands were full. Close enough now to speak without being overheard, he said low in his ear, “What’s going on?”  
  
“Liz is in trouble.”  
  
“What, did she talk back to the teacher?”  
  
Ressler clenched his teeth and counted to ten in his head. “I fly all the way to Europe to bring this to you personally because you claim to care so much about Elizabeth Keen and you write me off as a tattle-tale. Nice.”  
  
Reddington closed his eyes and took a deep breath, visibly trying to rein in his faltering patience. “What makes you think she’s in trouble?” he asked, his voice dripping with condescension. He was humoring him; he didn’t even consider the possibility that what Ressler said had any merit.   
  
“We got word of a threat against you and your assets, and, lo and behold, Liz is suddenly incommunicado.”   
  
Reddington opened his mouth to speak, but Ressler cut him off.  
  
“You know, I had this whole thing all planned out. We needed you back in DC and I was gonna tell you she’d been detained, see how fast you came running to try and play hero. But then I couldn’t get in contact with her. I checked with her family, local hotels and motels, airbnb, nothing. She just up and disappeared. And it seems awful convenient for her to go missing right when we got word of that threat, especially knowing how important she is to you. If someone wanted to get to you, the smart thing to do would be to go through her. It wouldn’t even be the first time it happened.   
  
“But, hell, what do I know? It could be a coincidence. That’s why I came to you first. I don’t want to bring the whole FBI down on her if she just skipped town for a week to go mourn her dad in peace. I wouldn’t even be asking this if not for the threat, but all you seem to care about is getting back to your booty-call or whatever. Better not let her know exactly how quickly you went from letting her cry on your shoulder to running away and finding the first available high class bimbo to sink your—”  
  
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Reddington interrupted, dismissive but insistent. Ressler got the distinct impression that he wanted to punch him in the face. Good. The feeling was mutual.  
  
“How could you possibly know that? Agent Keen is missing and you’re just—“  
  
“Agent Scott.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Her name is Scott now, Donald. And she’s not missing.”  
  
Something in Reddington’s tone made Ressler take a step back. He took in his appearance fully for the first time—the champagne bucket in one hand, two flutes in the other, his rumpled and half unbuttoned shirt, scratches and reddish love bites visible on the uncovered skin of his neck and chest. When he finally put two and two together, he stared at the other man in horrified disbelief.  
  
“No.”  
  
Reddington’s cheek twitched and his smile didn’t reach his eyes.  
  
“Can we get this over with? I’d like to get back to my vacation.”


	10. Anslo Garrick - Ask a Stupid Question

Ressler followed close at Reddington’s heels as the man swept into his hotel suite with his usual peacocky stage presence.  
  
“Lizzy, we have a visitor,” he called out, not bothering to mask his annoyance. “Remind me to cut this damn chip out next time we want a little privacy.”   
  
Liz stepped out of the bathroom and spotted Ressler right away. She pulled the edges of her robe together, tied a bow in the belt—hasty but tight—then crossed her arms over her chest for good measure. If looks could kill, he would’ve been dead and buried the second she made eye contact with him.   
  
“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.   
  
Ressler rolled his eyes. Nobody who’d been caught red-handed sleeping with their CI should have the audacity to seem so indignant about it. Because that was obviously what was going on here—Liz and Reddington were sleeping together. They could try to pass it off as something innocent all the wanted, but he wasn’t having any of it.  
  
“I could ask you the same question,” he said.  
  
“Yeah? Can you? You come all the way to Germany to do that?” she asked, brow raised in a challenge. “I’m doing him, obviously.” She nodded towards Reddington, who’d taken a seat on the sofa and was watching the two of them with an amused expression on his face.   
  
Ressler blanched. So much for them trying to do anything to deny their indiscretions. Liz smirked at him.   
  
“Ask a stupid question…” she said, trailing off with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders and Ressler cringed internally. She might have been fully covered, but she was still wearing much less than he had ever seen her wear; keeping his eyes firmly focused on her face was easier said than done, so instead he tried not looking at her at all.  
  
“Dear God, this is a nightmare.”  
  
“Oh, really? _You_ think it’s a nightmare?”  
  
“For Christ’s sake, I’m not the one who’s done something wrong here! By rights, I should report you, Keen.”  
  
“Scott,” she corrected automatically.  
  
“Might as well be Reddington at this point,” Ressler grumbled under his breath.  
  
“I heard that. And you,” she said, pointing an accusatory finger at Reddington, “you can just keep your damn mouth shut.”  
  
Reddington held up his hands in mock surrender. “I didn’t say anything at all, Lizzy.”  
  
“Yeah, well, wipe that smug smile off your face then. And don’t get any ideas.”  
  
Ressler’s head spun trying to make sense of the chaos he’d been thrust into. When he stepped off the plane an hour ago, he thought his task would be relatively straightforward, if not a little intimidating. This, though, was nothing short of madness. His partner wasn’t missing, she was carrying on an illicit love affair with the FBI’s number four most wanted criminal and now it fell to _him_ to sort it all out.   
  
The woman in question tapped her bare foot on the plush carpet, growing more impatient with Ressler by the minute. He looked skyward for guidance and found nothing more helpful than a fancy ceiling. And… was that a mirror? He shuddered and searched around desperately for a neutral place to rest his eyes, which was not a simple task in the hotel suite. Evidence of the two of them was everywhere, from Reddington’s fedora on the coffee table to Liz’s sensible leather boots lined up neatly by the closet.    
  
 Ressler soon exhausted his limited options and his gaze inevitably fell to the bed. He looked away again quickly, but not before he noticed the neckties looped through the intricate carvings on the ornate headboard. A quick glance found that Liz’s wrists were obviously unmarred; Reddington’s, however, were circled with the faint, purple-red smudges of burgeoning bruises.   
  
Instantly, Ressler was reminded of that day at the Post Office when Reddington had shown up covered with all the hallmarks of a rough night of passion and decided to tease Liz about how he’d gotten them. At the time, Ressler hadn’t even considered the possibility that there was any truth to the teasing, but in hindsight, maybe her irritation should have been a red flag. Sometimes the truth was a more effective disguise than a lie ever could be.  
  
Reddington himself really wasn’t a surprise. Laurence Dechambou had him bent over various pieces of furniture, by his own admission. Surrendering himself to Liz, well… It wasn’t a stretch. The man’s predilections weren’t exactly a secret. When it suited his purposes, he always surrendered so eagerly.   
  
But Liz? Ressler had never pictured her as the type. Now that he had, however, he was having a difficult time _not_ picturing it. In fact, he was forming much too vivid an image of their sex life than he had any interest in. He had no interest in knowing they had a sex life at all, but now that he knew, he couldn’t exactly unknow it. And it put him in an awkward position to say the least.  
  
 _Jesus_. This is why he stuck to facts, instead of profiles. Facts weren’t so… uncomfortable. Until, of course, they were.  
  
“So,” Liz said, “what’s going on? And don’t say you were in the neighborhood and decided to drop by.”  
  
“Agent Ressler tells me the FBI has received a threat against my assets, which he has obviously decided includes you, and when he couldn’t contact you to assure your safety, he panicked and decided the most efficient course of action was to fly across the Atlantic and tell me about your apparent disappearance in person.”  
  
“That’s not exactly the whole story.”  
  
“Oh? And what, pray tell, is the whole story? You’ve got us on tenterhooks, Donald.”  
  
Ressler shook his head. “God, what does it matter anymore? What am I supposed to do with… with _this?”_ he said, throwing up his hands. It came out just short of a whine and he hated himself for it. Reddington always made him feel like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and now Liz was giving him a run for his money.  
  
“You don’t have to do anything with it. Tell them you reached me and everything’s fine. No one else has to know about it. Hell, if you could pretend you didn’t know, it’d be better for everyone involved.”  
  
“Come on, Liz, really? How am I supposed to just ignore this?”  
  
“Why is it such a big deal to you? Who exactly is getting hurt by it, anyway?” Ressler raised an eyebrow, glanced at Reddington, and opened his mouth, but Liz cut him off. “Jesus, Ressler. Don’t answer that. Haven’t you ever heard of a rhetorical question?”   
  
“Donald has never met a figure of speech he couldn’t willfully misunderstand,” said Reddington.  
  
Liz let out a long-suffering sigh. “Look,” she said, “The two of you figure out what the hell is going on without me. I’m tired, I’m sore, and I’m going to go take a shower.”  
  
“Oh my God.”    
  
“What?”   
  
“You ever hear of over-sharing?”  
  
“Oh, grow up,” she said, and pushed the bathroom door shut behind her with more force than was strictly necessary.  
  
Reddington regarded Ressler from his seat on the sofa with an air of false cheer, clearly enjoying his discomfort despite the still pressing issue of the threat against him. Ressler sat heavily in the armchair on the opposite side of the coffee table and ran a hand through his hair.   
  
He couldn’t remember a time he had felt more uneasy than he did at that moment. His partner was naked in the next room, something he normally wouldn’t even give a second thought, bit in this context, he couldn’t _stop_ thinking about it. And, above all, he really wished Reddington would just button his goddamn shirt already.  
  
“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe that Liz would fall for…”  
  
“For what? For what, Donald?” Reddington asked. “If you think I would _ever_ try to take advantage of—“   
  
“No. I can’t believe she would fall for someone like you.”   
  
An uncomfortable silence fell over the two men. Ressler knew he was pushing his luck and risking his health by saying these things to Reddington, but he truly couldn’t help himself. “I thought she had more sense than that,” he finished after a few tense moments, his voice hollow.   
  
Every last ounce of amusement had drained from Reddington’s face, his posture, and all that was left was grim resolve.   
  
“Let me get this straight,” he said, “You were willing to use what you perceived to be my feelings for Agent Scott against me in order to forcibly take me into protective custody, but now that you see those feelings are reciprocated, you suddenly have a problem with them? In what world does _that_ make sense?”  
  
“There are rules…”  
  
“I’m sorry, are you really going to make that argument with me of all people?” Reddington asked, with a wry arch to his brow. “Agent Scott just lost her father. Her husband betrayed her, and it wasn’t just garden variety adultery, either—he was an assassin, for God’s sake. Are you going to begrudge her what little happiness she can hold onto now?”   
  
“And you’re trying to tell me you make her happy?”  
  
“I do my best,” he said, lifting his chin. “We can handle this, Donald. We’ve _been_ handling this. It’s not going to interfere with the work, I promise you that. Hell, the only thing that’s changed is who goes home to whose bed at night.”  
  
“Just how long has this been going on?”  
  
Reddington watched him silently, chewing a bit on the inside of his cheek. “It’s probably better if you don’t know the specifics.”  
  
What a classic Reddington misdirect that was, just vague enough to mean nothing at all. Or possibly everything.   
  
“No, I get it, I see how it is. I always knew the two of you were trying to pull something on us from the beginning.”  
  
“ _Hey_. That’s not what I meant. She had nothing to do with my surrender.”  
  
“Bullshit. She had everything to do with your surrender.”  
  
“Fine. But she knew nothing about it ahead of time. And if you try to use this to cook up some excuse to pin some kind of conspiracy charge on her, my hand to God, it will be the last decision you ever make.”  
  
“Why do you care so much whether the FBI believes you were in cahoots or not?”  
  
“Because after all she’s overcome in her life to get where she is, she doesn’t deserve to have that kind of black mark on her record. She may be associated with me now, but I won’t have the blood, sweat, and tears she put into building her career tainted by the heinous notion that she got here because of me somehow, instead of by her own merit.”  
  
Ressler sat back in the armchair, more than a little bewildered. He thought of the man he studied, the man he tracked and pursued and followed to the ends of the earth and back. He knew his patterns and his preferences. He’d learned, since working with him, a little about his brand of morality, of loyalty. This was still… different.  
  
“Good God. You really are in love with her.”  
  
Reddington stared at him blankly for a long, silent moment. “Does the FBI hire solely on the ability to state the obvious or is there some other job requirement I’m missing?”


	11. Anslo Garrick - Good News and Bad News

Reddington leaned back in his seat and all too casually crossed one leg over the other. “Now,” he said, “tell me about this threat that’s got you in such a tizzy. Who’s claiming responsibility for it?”  
  
Ressler frowned. “That’s classified,” he said, stiff and ill at ease.  
  
Reddington’s eyebrows crept up towards his receding hairline, his expression rich with condescension. “Classified. Clearance levels don’t apply to me, Donald. I can’t properly assess the risk if you won’t tell me who it is.”  
  
Ressler pressed his lips together, but he couldn’t quite stop the small noise of frustration from escaping his throat; Reddington was, as ever, unimpressed by his annoyance.  
  
“Face it, the jig is up. You have nothing to gain by withholding the name and everything to lose. I’m not even going to _consider_ cooperating with you until you—”  
  
“All right, fine. It’s Anslo Garrick.”  
  
Reddington’s eyes widened the slightest bit, his overconfident mask slipping for the first time since Ressler spied him across the hotel bar downstairs. “Garrick? Good God. It’s a miracle I knew Lizzy was safe, otherwise…” He trailed off and shook himself, pinning Ressler with a piercing stare. “You of all people should realize this was a set up.”  
  
“What the hell do you mean by that?”  
  
“Isn’t it obvious? He’s using the FBI to get to me. All he had to do was put word of a threat out through the proper channels and here you are, ready and willing to hand deliver me to him. You and your colleagues are nothing more than unwitting pawns in his game.”  
  
“How can you be so sure?”  
  
“Come now, Donald, this isn’t complicated. His methods are an open secret in my circles—he’s not above using the system to his advantage to get the job done. Who do you think supplied you with that tip in Brussels?”  
  
A chill ran through Ressler’s body and his stomach dropped. “You’ve known this whole time that I was the one who tried to kill you in Brussels?”  
  
Reddington waved him off as if this revelation was completely insignificant. “Of course I knew. It’s my business to know anything and everything about all of my allies and enemies alike that could potentially be useful. I know their preferences, their weaknesses, their spouses’ names, girlfriends, boyfriends, children… Whatever happened to Audrey Bidwell, anyway?”  
  
“None of your fucking business, that’s what.”  
  
Reddington’s mouth quirked in a humorless smile and he cocked his head to the side. “Relationship drama, how exciting. You know, it’s only fair that you share all the juicy details, considering you know all about mine now.”  
  
“If you know so much about me, I’m sure you know all the ‘juicy details’ already. God. You and Keen deserve each other, you’re both infuriating.” Reddington opened his mouth to correct him again, but Ressler cut him off. “Yeah, I know, _Scott_ , I get it. It’s gonna take me more than twenty minutes to get used to it, calm down.”

 

* * *

  
  
Liz tried to ignore Red and Ressler’s muffled voices while she showered, relying on the sound of the water to help drown out anything intelligible. She knew she would have to face whatever this new challenge was sooner rather than later, but she wasn’t ready yet. A few more moments of blissful ignorance was all she asked.  
  
This trip was supposed to be a break from the chaos her life had become over the past few months, but it seemed that wherever Red went, trouble wasn’t far behind. And Ressler, it seemed, wasn’t far behind either. Which was unfortunate, especially in this context.  
  
Perhaps it was foolish of her, but she truly hoped knowledge of her and Red’s relationship would go no further than Meera and Aram, at least for a while. Maybe once she settled into what life would be like without Sam. Maybe never.  
  
Of course, with her luck, never was always nothing more than a pipe dream. Today had proven truth will out at the most inopportune moment, as she’d come to expect.  
  
However, while Ressler’s reaction to finding out about her and Red wasn’t exactly positive, it sure as hell could’ve been worse. He could have refused to listen to them at all. He could’ve pulled his gun, tried to arrest them—or her, at least… It wasn’t much, but it was _something_. Perhaps they would be able to weather this storm yet.  
  
As she towel dried her hair, Liz examined herself in the mirror, half obscured with condensation. Red had been going out of his way to provide her with support and distractions in equal measure, and an hour ago, her face might have passed for relaxed. Now she simply looked tired, with dark circles borne of grief-filled nightmares and a deeper furrow between her brows than she’d ever had before.     
  
And, really, it had already been a long, exhausting day even before Ressler showed up. Not that that was necessarily a bad thing, she thought with a smirk. No one could ever claim that Red lacked stamina. Or creativity. Or…  
  
Liz shook herself, and tried to focus her attention on finishing up her evening routine. What use was there in putting off the inevitable for any longer? She couldn’t very well stay in the bathroom forever, and she doubted Red would be able to convince Ressler to leave until she’d been debriefed as well.  
  
Once her task was complete, she took a deep breath, wrapped her hand around the steam-covered knob on the bathroom door, and pulled it open. Immediately, Red’s head swung around to catch her eye. His gaze moved quickly over her face, a brief concerned scan to gauge her state of mind before he pasted a patronizing smirk on his face and slipped back into what she thought of as his ‘dealing with Ressler’ persona.  
  
“I have good news and bad news, Lizzy. Which do you want to hear first?”  
  
“The good news.”  
  
“Ah. Well, we have successfully appealed to Agent Ressler’s better nature and he will not immediately be reporting our indiscretions to the FBI for disciplinary purposes.”  
  
“What a relief,” she said, flatly, exchanging a glance with the man in question before turning back to Red. “So, what’s the bad news?”  
  
“One of my ex-associates wants my head on a silver platter. But, really, what else is new?”  
  
Liz frowned. “You say that like it’s not something we should be worried about.”  
  
“Oh, of course it’s something to worry about. It’s also quite commonplace.”  
  
“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better.” Liz took a seat on the sofa and tucked a leg underneath her so she could face Red, but still keep a watchful eye on Ressler to see how he reacted to Red’s explanation of their discussion. She trusted Red, but he could be flippant about his own safety, and he and Ressler judged danger differently, anyway. “So this associate of yours—who is he?”  
  
“His name is Anslo Garrick,” Red said, speaking the name with his customary dramatic flair. Ressler shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortably like a kid being chastised by the school principal. Hmm… That was interesting.  
  
“I’ve never heard of him.”  
  
“Well, no, you wouldn’t have. But Donald has. Haven’t you, Donald?”  
  
“Yeah, I dropped the ball, give me a break. Rubbing it in my face isn’t going to fix anything. And how come you didn’t tell me that you’ve worked with Garrick before?”  
  
“Must have slipped my mind.”  
  
“OK, so who is Garrick?”  
  
“Anslo Garrick specializes in extractions—extractions of high profile targets, from _very_ highly secure facilities. There is not a place on god’s green earth where Anslo Garrick can’t get you. At least, that’s how he sells himself. And he _is_ skilled, don’t get me wrong, but he lacks a certain… finesse. He’s about as subtle at his work as a gardener trimming a bonsai tree with a chainsaw.”  
  
“What’s his deal with you?”  
  
“I taught him everything he knows. Knowledge which he, in turn, decided to use to build his own business behind my back, taking advantage of the access he had to my extensive contacts to pass himself off as my partner. As always, he had an over-inflated opinion of his own importance.  
  
“His thick skull apparently served some purpose, because, despite my best efforts, the well-earned bullet in the face for his duplicity failed to kill him. Although it did manage to disfigure him quite horrifically, last I heard.”  
  
Liz raised an eyebrow. “And yet somehow he didn’t take too kindly to it.”  
  
“Who could have guessed?” Red quipped, with a faux-innocent shake of his head.  
  
Liz stood up and began to pace, chewing absently at the edge of her thumb as she mulled everything over.  
  
“Why do you think Ressler handled Garrick’s threat badly?”  
  
“Garrick set us up,” Ressler said. “The threat was bait and I fell for it. If you weren’t here with Reddington…” He shrugged, staring at his clasped hands in his lap.  
  
“Garrick intends to snatch me up as soon as I return to the Post Office. If Donald’s plan to lure me back to DC using news that you had been detained by the FBI had gone off without a hitch, we could, at this very moment, be in the air, unwittingly on our way straight into his clutches.”  
  
“You realize what that means, right?” she asked. “The fact that Garrick sent out bait in the first place means he has some way of knowing whether you’re at the Post Office or not. And it doesn’t matter that it’s a black site, he can still find you—reach you—wherever you are. Even if that place doesn’t legally exist. You’re not safe there.”  
  
Red nodded. “And as… chilling… as that assessment is, you’re missing the most important detail. The fact that Garrick knows about the Post Office at all can only mean one thing that matters—there is a mole in the task force.”  
  
“A mole? Why would anyone risk their career to—?”  
  
“Your practical idealism would be admirable, Donald, if it wasn’t so dangerously naive. I’m sure whatever deal Garrick and his benefactor offered in exchange for me was much sweeter than their paltry federal salary. All they have to do is ensure that I’m in the building at a particular time and then signal Garrick’s men. Easy money.”  
  
A sudden horrible thought occurred to Liz; she dropped back into her seat and glanced surreptitiously at Ressler. Red must have caught the concern on her face, because he shook his head and made a dismissive gesture with the hand that wasn’t draped across the back of the sofa behind her.  
  
“Oh, don’t worry, Lizzy. Donald is too much of a boy scout to willingly go against the FBI so blatantly.”  
  
Ressler's head snapped up, and he looked back and forth between Red and Liz. “I didn’t think it was possible to feel insulted by someone _not_ questioning my loyalty. Thanks for that, I guess.”


	12. Anslo Garrick - Brainstorming

While Liz and Ressler attempted to come to terms with the idea of a compromised task force, Red decided  to deal with the stress and emotional upheaval of the day the best way he knew how—by ordering enough room service to feed a small army. There was always time for food, he argued, and they could all use a little fuel if they were going be at their best while they figured out how to handle the situation. He took it as an opportunity to push one rare delicacy after another on Ressler, who didn’t seem half as amused as either of his companions.   
  
Liz had learned early in their relationship not to take all of Red’s recommendations at face value; he was just as apt to encourage a person to taste something abjectly disgusting as he was to offer something delicious. It wasn’t even mean-spirited or mischievous—Red could find something to appreciate about damn near any experience, good or bad, because he valued the knowledge those experiences offered about the world and himself. Others, he thought, could benefit from being nudged outside of their comfort zones and he was uniquely positioned to do the nudging. Liz thought he might just have a point.  
  
“Whoever hired Garrick,” Red said, after swallowing a mouthful of food, “has a knowledge of my movements and my activities that could put at risk the secrecy of my agreement with the FBI.”  
  
“It’s worse than that,” Liz said. “Whoever ordered it must _already know_ about your agreement with the FBI. They know about the Post Office, they know the people who work there well enough to have turned at least one of them—they have to know you’re our CI. There must be corruption somewhere pretty high up the food chain for all that to reach someone like Garrick and for no one to order the task force moved or disbanded. There’s more to this than we’re seeing.”  
  
Red nodded in agreement while he sipped at his drink, with that faint crinkle around his eyes that spoke of approval and pride in her assessment of the situation. Ressler, however, was more skeptical.  
  
“You think it’s an inside job,” he said flatly.  
  
“Well, it has to be, doesn’t it? If Garrick was hired by one of Red’s enemies who discovered that he’s an informant, why would they risk breaking into a government facility when they could grab him literally anywhere else? And if this was truly someone who was only out for his blood, he’d be dead already. No. There’s something weird about this.”  
  
“OK. Say you’re right and there is a mole in the Post Office and someone higher up is compromised, too. How are we gonna fix this? Where do we go from here?”  
  
“Elizabeth is not setting foot anywhere near the Post Office until we find out who’s responsible for this,” Red said, with a finality that seemed to take Ressler by surprise at least as much as the abrupt, almost non sequitur. Liz’s chest tightened at what he had left unspoken, a visceral reaction that went far beyond the bristling she felt at him making a definitive decision for her.  
  
“Excuse me? Neither are you!”  
  
Red absently swirled the liquor around in his tumbler, studying it as it flowed around the tinkling ice cubes. “Lizzy…”  
  
“No, Red. I’m being serious, here. Come on, I need you to look at me.” Reluctantly, he met her eyes. “The second you walk into the Post Office, you trigger everything. I don’t care if you think you can handle it or that it’ll expedite things; it’s too big a risk and if something went wrong, I can’t lose you. Especially not now.”   
  
Liz swallowed hard and blinked to clear her eyes. She wished her voice hadn’t trembled when she spoke. Her fears and vulnerabilities were personal. Sharing them with Red was one thing. Sharing them with Ressler, or even just in front of him, was another.  
  
Red reached down and took her hand. “OK. No Post Office for either of us,” he agreed, his voice gruff.  
  
“You realize you two can’t just skip town and go into hiding until this blows over, right? Cooper wants Reddington in the Post Office as soon as possible. He expects to hear back from me even sooner. Besides, there’s a record of his location; no one’s gonna buy it if I tell them he wasn’t here when I showed up. And obviously they have every intention to keep tracking him.”   
  
“It doesn’t matter what Harold wants. It doesn’t matter what anybody at the FBI wants. We’re going to have to do this my way, Donald, whether you agree with that or not. Even if we avoided the Post Office itself, any official or unofficial FBI facility is suspect until we find out who hired Garrick.  
  
“We’ll have to go through the motions to start with. Make it look like I’m going along with you in good faith. We’ll take my jet back to the States tomorrow—you tell them I refused to fly FBI Air and the first chance I got once we landed, I disappeared. While they try to track me down, we track them. Once we have some actionable intel, my people will contact you so we can regroup and figure out how to handle it from there.”  
  
Red set his glass down and shifted forward on the couch, tilting his head to catch and hold Ressler’s skittish gaze.   
  
“I want to make this very clear, Donald—not one word of this speculation gets back to Harold Cooper. Not that I suspect he’s our culprit, but if the culprit is someone higher up the food chain, the intel is still finding its way upstream somehow. Harold’s a potential point of contact, whether he’s aware of it or not.”  
  
Ressler nodded slowly; he looked vaguely green and when he cleared his throat, he used it as an excuse to break eye contact. “What about Liz?”  
  
“What about her? As far as they know, she’s in Nebraska reconnecting with family and she’s incommunicado for another couple weeks. If they try to find her like you did, then we’ll worry about pushing a story that once I got wind of the plot, I hid her for her protection. For now, it’s better if she’s not on their radar at all.”    
  
“Speaking of radar,” Liz said, “you’re pulling your chip tonight. If there’s a mole with access to the Post Office, who knows how long it’ll take for them to get impatient? If we just assume they’ll stick with the plan and wait around for Ressler to make contact, we could be blindsided.  
  
“Just think about it… If Ressler takes too long getting back and they start going down the same path he took to get here, they find out not only where _you_ are; chances are they can connect enough dots to point them back to me, too. We can’t afford to let anybody who’s compromised know about us.”  
  
Red considered Liz for a moment, long enough for her to begin to feel slightly antsy. “Can you perform minor field surgery or should I get Dembe?”  
  
“You want me to do it?”  
  
“I trust you. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time you put a hole in my neck.” She narrowed her eyes at him and gave his shoulder a gentle shove; he held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sure Donald can back you up if you need a second pair of eyes. Or hands, if absolutely necessary, but I’d prefer if you’re the one who—”  
  
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Ressler said, pushing himself to his feet. “You two go ahead and bicker with each other for another twenty minutes; I’m using you’re bathroom.” He stormed out of the room, stopping just short of slamming the door behind him. Small courtesy.   
  
“By the way, Lizzy…” Red said, examining his fingernails with feigned nonchalance. “Did you happen to put away the, uh—“  
  
“Oh, God. He’s never going to make eye contact with either of us ever again.”


	13. Anslo Garrick - New Scars and Old Scars

Ressler emerged from the bathroom just as Dembe handed off a large bag of medical supplies to Liz; he made brief, silent eye contact with Ressler before he disappeared back into the adjoining hotel room.   
  
Ressler felt a little judged whenever he interacted with Dembe. Like the man thought he shouldn’t be interfering in his employer’s business, which was absurd. Working with Reddington was as much Ressler’s job now as it was Dembe’s.  
  
Liz set the bag down on the desk and started sifting through the supplies. Reddington was already shirtless, sitting on a stool next to her with the desk lamp angled towards him so it could be used as a makeshift surgical light, under which the burn scars on his back stood out in sharp relief.   
  
Those awful scars always made Ressler wince. Burns that bad over such a large amount of skin? The recovery must have been hell on earth. Ressler could only guess what criminal hijinks had caused them; Reddington’s case file certainly didn’t say.  
  
“Well? You ready?” Liz asked, holding out a pair of latex gloves. “It’s now or never.”   
  
Ressler took the gloves, hoping as Reddington did that his services wouldn’t be needed after all. “All right. Let’s get this over with.”  
  
Unlike him, Liz seemed confident enough. She swabbed Reddington’s neck and shoulder with antiseptic and selected a wickedly sharp scalpel from the extensive medical kit.   
  
“You sure you don’t want anything for the pain?” she asked.  
  
Reddington shook his head. “I’ve made it through much worse than this before.”  
  
“Whatever you say. I’ll try to make it quick.”   
  
Liz kneaded his shoulder with a gloved hand, no doubt searching for a foreign shape beneath the man’s scarred flesh. Finding what she was looking for, she took a slow, deep breath and began making a small, meticulous incision in his skin.  
  
“You have steady hands,” Ressler said.  
  
Liz shrugged. “Always have. My partner in seventh grade science class made me do the entire frog dissection by myself.”  
  
“That’s a comfortable comparison from my position,” Red interjected.  
  
“Oh, hush. You wanted me to do this. Besides, it’s not my fault the frog was deformed and didn’t have an identifiable liver.”  
  
“Lizzy!”  
  
She poked him with the tip of her finger. “Maybe you shouldn’t talk so much while I have a sharp object inside you.” Reddington started to chuckle, making Liz pull the blade out of range of the incision. “Hey, watch it!”  
  
“Mmm. Sharp objects aren’t nearly as much fun, are they?” Reddington teased, his voice laced with innuendo.  
  
Ressler felt his ears heat. Well. That cleared up any uncertainty he had about his discovery on the edge of the hot tub. His life from this point out was doomed to be a never-ending parade of too much information.    
  
Despite the banter, there was so much affection in their tone and in their gaze, it made Ressler’s teeth ache. He felt like the third wheel, no, worse than that—he felt like a _voyeur_. This should be a private moment between lovers, as bizarre a thing as it was. But when had Reddington and Liz’s relationship been anything but bizarre?  
  
Ressler thought back to the dark amusement he’d felt when he chose Romeo as the code for Reddington’s box the first time he locked him inside it, and his stomach turned. It was meant to be a sick joke about the man and his hard-on for Keen, whatever the nature of it actually was. He hadn’t anticipated this, hadn’t ever thought there’d be any prescience to it. ‘Star-crossed lovers’ just wasn’t a term that was supposed to apply to most wanted criminals and FBI agents.  
  
It was much easier for him to loathe Reddington, to hunt him, when Ressler could pretend he was some sort of monster, instead of a complex human being with worries and fears and feelings of love and tenderness like any other. Faced so often with his humanity, it was impossible to see him as anything but human.  
  
Liz made quick work of her operation, plucking the tracking chip out of Reddington’s shoulder in short order, with forceps and a little bit of elbow grease to free it from the tissue that had healed around it. Task complete, she closed up the wound with a small row of neat, even sutures. Ressler couldn’t help but be impressed; he couldn’t sew a row of stitches straight enough to save his favorite shirt, let alone someone’s skin.  
  
Newly bandaged, Reddington shrugged stiffly back into his shirt, squinting at his watch as he rolled up his cuffs. “Now that that’s finished, we should all get some rest. It’s late and I’m sure it’s been a long day for everyone, what with all the conspiracies and jet-setting and such.”   
  
Reddington took a moment to observe Ressler with his head tilted to one side; Ressler couldn’t decide why it was so much more disconcerting for him to do it while his dress shirt was completely unbuttoned in the front. He supposed it only served to emphasize just how out of place he felt there, intruding on Reddington’s sanctuary, temporary as it was.   
  
“There’s two beds in the adjoining room,” Reddington said. “I’m sure Dembe would be willing to share.”  
  
“No thanks, I’ll get my own room. On a different floor. As far away from—” Ressler made a gesture in the vague vicinity of the bedroom— “as possible.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Liz’s world was on fire.   
  
Not figuratively. The entire room around her was quite literally ablaze. Flames danced across the rugs and floorboards, licked and climbed their way up the furniture and the curtains, engulfing everything in their path. The crackling roar and snapping of the flames drowned out every sound save the screaming.   
  
Liz’s screaming.   
  
And Sam’s screaming.   
  
But that wasn’t right. Sam wasn’t supposed to be there. She hadn’t even met Sam until after the fire. And wasn’t Sam already dead?  
  
She struggled to move through the room but her limbs were all wrong, like she was some paradoxical combination of her child self and the woman she had become. The burn on her wrist was at once old and deadened, and excruciatingly, searingly fresh.   
  
Through the smoke and the fire, she saw Red, older and younger too, coming towards her. He pulled her from the flames even as they licked at her body, but he couldn’t save Sam, not before the fire scorched Red’s back and stole his strength.   
  
She shook him, but he wouldn’t stir.  
  
She begged. Nothing still.  
  
Eventually, Liz gave up trying to rouse him and instead tried to drag Red’s battered, unconscious body clear of the inferno. Her lungs cried out for oxygen as she struggled even to budge him, the smell of burnt flesh mingling putridly with the smoke.   
  
It was a lost cause. She knew it. They were going to die there. With Sam, who should have been gone long before this night. And long after it.   
  
Then, just as suddenly as they’d been trapped by the growing conflagration, they were free of it, outside in the shockingly cool winter air. They both collapsed into the frost-covered grass that materialized beneath them; Red was unresponsive again as soon as his body hit the ground.  
  
“Come on, Red, you gotta wake up! Please wake up! Please, Red!”  
  
“ _Lizzy_.”  
  
Liz’s eyes snapped open to find Red’s concerned face leaning over her in the flat gray darkness of the hotel suite. He was, thankfully, only the Red of today, with the familiar worry lines between his brows and crinkles around his eyes. She threw her arms around his neck, clung to him and sobbed into his uninjured shoulder, gasping for breath, afraid that if she let go, he’d disappear like the wisps of her nightmare.  
  
He stroked his fingers through her hair and whispered into her ear between soft, reassuring kisses. “Shh, shh, it was just a dream, sweetheart. Whatever it was, it can’t hurt you.”  
  
Liz’s body trembled in Red’s arms; her fight or flight instinct didn’t care one whit that the dream wasn’t real. The adrenaline would wear off soon enough, her pounding heart would calm, but the images in her mind would haunt her.  
  
“There was a fire. You were there. You were burning,” she said; she felt him go stock-still against her. “It was terrible. We couldn’t save Sam. I don’t even know why he was there.”  
  
Red let out a ragged sigh and when he spoke again, his voice was odd. “I’m sorry, Lizzy. Grief plays tricks on you. Reliving the loss can be devastating, but sometimes it’s the dreams where they’re still alive that’re especially cruel. If it’s any consolation, it should get easier as time goes on.”  
  
Liz buried her face in Red’s neck and breathed in the scent of his skin, untainted by smoke.   
  
Thank God Sam’s death wasn’t that bad in reality, that it was peaceful and quick instead of tortuous and gruesome. She’d seen too many brutal ends in her line of work. Sam of all people didn’t deserve one.


End file.
